"Joel Rosenberg - Omnibus 03 - To Home and Ehvenor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

adult. He looked so damn young.

His gaze went distant, as though he was thinking about something, and just for a moment a flash of the
other side of his father crossed his face, and there was something distant and cold in his expression. But
the moment passed, and he looked about fifteen again, even though he was a couple of years older.
Good kid.

Jason Cullinane favored his mother, mainly. I could see Andrea's genes in his cheekbones and the
widow's peak, and in the warm dark eyes. But there was more than a little of Karl Cullinane visibleтАФin
the set of his chin and shoulders, mainly. I'd say that it frightened me, sometimes, but everybody knows
that the great Walter Slovotsky doesn't frighten.

Which only goes to show that everybody doesn't know a whole lot.

"The bacon?" I gestured at the platter.

Tennetty finally passed it. "What's the hurry this morning?"

"Who said there's a hurry? I'm hungry."

The first time I'd seen Tennetty, years ago, when Karl and I were running a team of Home raiders, she
had just staggered out of a slave wagon, a plain skinny woman of the sort your eye tends to skip over.
No character lines in her face, no interesting scars.

Even from such a start, Tennetty hadn't worn well as the years had gone by; her bony face sagged in the
morning, and the patch fit loosely over her empty left eye socket. She rubbed at the scar that snaked
around her good eye, then tossed her head to clear her bangs from her eyesтАФwell,eye. Tennetty was
getting sloppy, maybe; in the old days, she wouldn't have let her bangs grow that long.

The old days.The trouble with old people is that they always talk about the old days like they were the
good days. I don't buy it. Maybe because my memory is too goodтАФthere were too many days out on
the road, sleeping on rocks, never sleeping fully, because there's always trouble ahead. Hell, we were
looking for trouble, then. Part of the plan.

"So?" Jason said. "What are you up to this morning?"

"I've got a date with a bow and some rabbits, maybe a deer," I said. Or maybe not. More likely, my
date was with the limb of an oak tree. No, not to hang from itтАФto put some arrows into it.

Tennetty nodded judiciously. "You and the dwarf?"

I shouldn't have been surprised. Even after twenty years, Tennetty still hadn't noticed that Ahira didn't
like to go hunting. Not for food, unless absolutely necessary; not for sport, ever.

"Not his cup of tea. Ahira's still asleep."

There had been many late hours of late, and the sun wasn't quite up. I didn't blame it. The time before
dawn is when I like to start staggering toward a bed to sleep in, not staggering out of it. It was
uncharacteristic of me to be awake at this hour, but one thing I learned a long time ago is to do things that
are uncharacteristicтАФkeeps you young, maybe, and alive, sometimes.