"Sheri S. Tepper - Awakeners 2 - Southshore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

hard melons, half barrels of slib rootsтАФready to sprout salad whenever they were
wet down, even with the brackish River water. They ordered smoked shiggles,
procured by Fez from some unspecified source along with kegs of Jarb roots.
They bought sweetening and spices and kegs of oil, both oil for cooking and for
the lanterns and stove. They paid for bolts of pamet cloth and coils of rope, extra

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lines for fishing, and bags of frag powder. They sought a pen of fowl for the rear
deck with snug, watertight nesting boxes, and the cooper began making an
endless series of kegs for fresh drinking water.
They ordered spices and medicines, a set of new pans for the cook, and
supplementary tools for the carpenter's locker.
Not all of this was available in Thou-ne. Some of it was mustered mysteriously by
the Noor and arrived as mysteriously on other boats coming from the east. This
meant delay, and more delay, but the Noor were patient, more patient than
Thrasne owner, who wanted only to put some great challenge like an
impenetrable wall between himself and the way Pamra had gone. The harder he
worked, the less he thought of her, yet he could not give up thinking of her
entirely
And in between times he sat in his cubby or alone in his watching place and
distracted himself by writing in his book. Though, as it happened, sometimes the
things he wrote were not a distraction at all but led him deep within himself to the
very things he would rather not have thought of.

Talker of the Sixth Degree, by the grace of Potipur articulate, Sliffisunda of the
Gray Talons perched in the entry-way of his aerie waiting for the approach of the
delegation. He had asked for a report on the herd beasts, and the keepers had told
him they would send a delegation. From the northlands somewhere, wherever it
was they kept the young animals they had taken. So, let them send their
delegation and be quick about it. Sliffisunda was hungry. They had brought him a
new meat human just that afternoon, and he could hear it moving about in his
feeding trough. It made him salivate disgustingly, and the drool leaked from his
beak onto his feet, making them itch.
Rustling on the rampway. Wings at far aperture. So, they were assembling. Now
they approached. Stillisas, Talker of the Fifth Degree. Two fours, Shimmipas and
Slooshasill. He knew them, but then . . . he knew all Talkers. There were only
some fifteen hundred of them in the whole world, divided among the Gray, Black,
Blue, and Red Talons, the only four that had not been allowed to fall into ruin at
time of hunger. Well.

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"Uplifted One." Stillisas bowed, tail tucked tight to show honor. The others, one
on either side, bowed as deeply.
"So," Sliffisunda croaked. "Stillisas. You have something to report to me."