"Mike Resnick - Kirinyaga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"I will watch you in particular, little one," I replied, "and the story
will be as long or as short as your work merits."
The adults all laughed and suddenly she looked very uncomfortable, but
then I chuckled and hugged her and patted her head, for it was necessary that
the children learned to love their mundumugu as well as hold him in awe, and
finally she ran off to play and dance with the other girls, while I retired to
my boma.
Once inside, I activated my computer and discovered that a message was
waiting for me from Maintenance, informing me that one of their number would
be visiting me the following morning. I made a very brief reply -- "Article
II, Paragraph 5", which is the ordinance forbidding intervention -- and lay
down on my sleeping blanket, letting the rhytmic chanting of the singers carry
me off to sleep.
I awoke with the sun the next morning and instructed my computer to let
me know when the Maintenance ship had landed. Then I inspected my cattle and
my goats -- I, alone of my people, planted no crops, for the Kikuyu feed their
mundumugu, just as they tend his herds and weave his blankets and keep his
boma clean -- and stopped by Simani's boma to deliver a balm to fight the
disease that was afflicting his joints. Then, as the sun began warming the
earth, I returned to my own boma, skirting the pastures where the young men
were tending their animals. When I arrived, I knew the ship had landed, for I
found the droppings of a hyena on the ground near my hut, and that is the
surest sign of a curse.
I learned what I could from the computer, then walked outside and
scanned the horizon while two naked children took turns chasing a small dog
and running away from it. When they began frightening my chickens, I gently
sent them back to their own boma, and then seated myself beside my fire. At
last I saw my visitor from Maintenance, coming up the path from Haven. She
was obviously uncomfortable in the heat, and she slapped futilely at the flies
that circled her head. Her blonde hair was starting to turn grey, and I could
tell by the ungainly way she negotiated the steep, rocky path that she was
unused to such terrain. She almost lost her balance a number of times, and it
was obvious that her proximity to so many animals frightened her, but she
never slowed her pace, and within another ten minutes she stood before me.
"Good morning," she said.
"Jambo, Memsaab," I replied.
"You are Koriba, are you not?"
I briefly studied the face of my enemy; middle-aged and weary, it did
not appear formidable. "I am Koriba," I replied.
"Good," she said. "My name is -- "
 "I know who you are," I said, for it is best, if conflict cannot be
avoided, to take the offensive.
"You do?"
I pulled the bones out of my pouch and cast them on the dirt. "You are
Barbara Eaton, born of Earth," I intoned, studying her reactions as I picked
up the bones and cast them again. "You are married to Robert Eaton, and you
have worked for Maintenance for nine years." A final cast of the bones. "You
are 41 years old, and you are barren."
"How did you know all that?" she asked with an expression of surprise.
"Am I not the mundumugu?"