"Mike Resnick - Barnaby in Exile (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

in front of her face, and suddenly there is a big _pop!_ It is so bright that
I can't see. I rub my eyes and walk forward. "Don't let him get too close,"
says the other man. "No telling what kind of diseases he's carrying." "Will
you play with Barnaby?" I ask. The first man picks up a rock and throws it at




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me. "Shoo!" he yells. "Go away!" He throws another rock, and I run back into
the forest. # When it is black out, and they sit around the fire, I sneak as
close as I can get, and lay down and listen to the sounds of their voices, and
pretend I am back in the lab. In the morning they throw rocks at me until I go
away. # And then one day, after they throw the rocks at me and I go for water,
I come back and find that they are gone. They were not very good friends, but
they were the only ones I had. What will I do now? # Finally, after many days,
I find a single Barnaby, and it is a female. She has terrible scars on her
from other Barnabys, and when she sees me she bares her teeth and growls. I
sit still and hope that she will not go away. After a long time she comes
closer to me. I am afraid to move, because I do not want to frighten her or
make her mad. I ignore her and stare off into the trees. Finally she reaches
out and picks an insect off my shoulder and puts it into her mouth, and soon
she is sitting beside me, eating the flowers and leaves that have fallen to
the ground. Finally, when I am sure she will not run away, I sign to her, "I
am Barnaby." She grabs at my hands as if I was playing with a fruit or an
insect, then shows her teeth when she sees that I am not holding anything. She
is really not any smarter than Roger, but at least she does not run away from
me. I will call her Sally. # Sally is afraid of the other Barnabys, so we live
at the edge of the forest, where they hardly ever come. She touches me, and
that is very nice, but I find that I miss talking and thinking even more.
Every day I try to teach her to sign, but she cannot learn. We have three baby
Barnabys, one after each rainy season, but they are no smarter than Sally, and
besides I have forgotten most of the signs. # More and more People come to the
forest in their brown cages. My family is afraid of them, but I love talking
and listening and thinking more than anything. I always visit their camps at
night, and listen to their voices in the darkness, and try to understand the
words. I pretend I am back in the lab, though it is harder and harder to
remember what the lab is like. Each time there are new People I show myself
and say "I am Barnaby", but none of them ever answers. When one finally does,
I will know that he is God. There were many things I wanted to ask him once,
but I cannot remember most of them. I will tell him to be nice to Sally and
the other two People at the lab -- I forget their names -- because what has
happened to me is not their fault. I will not ask him why he hated me so much
that he made me special, or why People and Barnabys always chase me away. I
will just say, "Please talk to Barnaby," and then I will ask if we can do a
lesson. Once, when I was a very bright fellow, there were many things I wanted
to discuss with him. But now that I have left the world, that will be enough.