"Theodore Sturgeon - The Skills of Xanadu" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

brook, for they formed the only cover overhead yet, to the ear, felt like a ceiling.
The whole effect was, to Bril, intensely depressing, and he surprised himself with a flash of
homesickness for the tall steel cities of his home planet.
Nina smiled and left them. Bril followed his host's example and sank down on the ground, or
floor, where it became a bank, or wall. Inwardly, Bril rebelled at the lack of decisiveness, of
discipline, of clear-cut limitation inherent in such haphazard design as this. But he was well
trained and quite prepared, at first, to keep his feelings to himself among barbarians.
"Nina will join us in a moment," said Tanyne.
Bril, who had been watching the woman's swift movements across the courtyard through the
transparent wall opposite, controlled a start. "I am unused to your ways and wondered what she was
doing," he said.
"She is preparing a meal for you," explained Tanyne.
"Herself?"
Tanyne and his son gazed wonderingly. "Does that seem unusual to you?"
"I understood the lady was wife to a Senator," said Bril. It seemed adequate as an
explanation, but only to him. He looked from the boy's face to the man's. "Perhaps I understand
something different when I use the term 'Senator.'"
"Perhaps you do. Would you tell us what a Senator is on the planet Kit Carson?"
"He is a member of the Senate, subservient to the Sole Authority, and in turn leader of a free
Nation."
"And his wife?"
"His wife shares his privileges. She might serve a member of the Sole Authority, but hardly
anyone else--certainly not an unidentified stranger."
"Interesting," said Tanyne, while the boy murmured the astonishment he had not expressed at
Bril's bubble, or Bril himself. "Tell me, have you not identified yourself, then?"
"He did, by the waterfall," the youth insisted.
"I gave you no proof," said Bril stiffly. He watched father and son exchange a glance.
"Credentials, written authority." He touched the flat pouch hung on his power belt.
Wonyne asked ingenuously, "Do the credentials say you are not Bril of Kit Carson in the Sumner


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System?"
Bril frowned at him and Tanyne said gently, "Wonyne, take care." To Bril, he said, "Surely
there are many differences between us, as there always are between different worlds. But I am
certain of this one similarity: the young at times run straight where wisdom has built a winding
path."
Bril sat silently and thought this out. It was probably some sort of apology, he decided, and
gave a single sharp nod. Youth, he thought, was an attenuated defect here. A boy Wonyne's age
would be a soldier on Carson, ready for a soldier's work, and no one would be apologizing for him.
Nor would he be making blunders. None!
He said, "These credentials are for your officials when I meet with them. By the way, when can
that be?"
Tanyne shrugged his wide shoulders. "Whenever you like."
"The sooner the better."
"Very well."
"Is it far?"
Tanyne seemed perplexed. "Is what far?"