"Resnick, Mike - Kirinyaga 2 - Kirinyaga" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

She lowered herself awkwardly to the ground, wrinkling her face as she raised a cloud of dust.
"It's very hot," she noted uncomfortably.
"It is very hot in Kenya," I replied.
"You could have created any climate you desired," she pointed out.
"We did create the climate we desired," I answered.
"Are there predators out there?" she asked, looking out over the savannah.
"A few," I replied.
"What kind?"
"Hyenas."
"Nothing larger?" she asked.
"There is nothing larger anymore," I said.
"I wonder why they didn't attack me?"
"Perhaps because you are an intruder," I suggested.
"Will they leave me alone on my way back to Haven?" she asked nervously, ignoring my comment.
"I will give you a charm to keep them away."
"I'd prefer an escort."
"Very well," I said.
"They're such ugly animals," she said with a shudder. "I saw them once when we were monitoring your world."
"They are very useful animals," I answered, "for they bring many omens, both good and bad."
"Really?"
I nodded. "A hyena left me an evil omen this morning."
"And?" she asked curiously.
"And here you are," I said.
She laughed. "They told me you were a sharp old man."
"They were mistaken," I replied. "I am a feeble old man who sits in front of his boma and watches younger men tend his cattle and goats."
"You are a feeble old man who graduated with honors from Cambridge and then acquired two postgraduate degrees from Yale," she replied.
"Who told you that?"
She smiled. "You're not the only one who reads biographies."
I shrugged. "My degrees did not help me become a better mundumugu," I said. "The time was wasted."
"You keep using that word. What, exactly, is a mundumugu?"
"You would call him a witch doctor," I answered. "But in truth the mundumugu, while he occasionally casts spells and interprets omens, is more a repository of the collected wisdom and traditions of his race."
"It sounds like an interesting occupation," she said.
"It is not without its compensations."
"And such compensations!" she said with false enthusiasm as a goat bleated in the distance and a young man yelled at it in Swahili. "Imagine having the power of life and death over an entire Eutopian world!"
So now it comes, I thought. Aloud I said: "It is not a matter of exercising power, Memsaab Eaton, but of maintaining traditions."
"I rather doubt that," she said bluntly.
"Why should you doubt what I say?" I asked.
"Because if it were traditional to kill newborn infants, the Kikuyus would have died out after a single generation."
"If the slaying of the infant arouses your disapproval," I said calmly, "I am surprised Maintenance has not previously asked about our custom of leaving the old and the feeble out for the hyenas."
"We know that the elderly and the infirm have consented to your treatment of them, much as we may disapprove of it," she replied. "We also know that a newborn infant could not possibly consent to its own death." She paused, staring at me. "May I ask why this particular baby was killed?"
"That is why you have come here, is it not?"
"I have been sent here to evaluate the situation," she replied, brushing an insect from her cheek and shifting her position on the ground. "A newborn child was killed. We would like to know why."
I shrugged. "It was killed because it was born with a terrible thahu upon it."
She frowned. "A thahu? What is that?"
"A curse."
"Do you mean that it was deformed?" she asked.
"It was not deformed."
"Then what was this curse that you refer to?"
"It was born feet-first," I said.
"That's it?" she asked, surprised. "That's the curse?"