"Sheri S. Tepper - Shadow's End" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

Time came soon enough, of course, when suspicion was fulfilled and Leelson went away. Unforgivably
away. Without announcement or preamble. One morning she had wakened to find him gone. He'd left a
note, of course, if one could call five words a note. Not much after their years together.

"You must feel abandoned. Betrayed!" This from Lutha's older sister, Yma, sector-famed, thespian
absolute.

The accuracy of this made Lutha blaze hotly as she denied it. "I do not! Leelson's and my relationship
lasted a long time. Neither of us is from a contractual culture, so why would I feel betrayed!" She said it
as though she meant it. In fact, she did feel betrayed and abandoned, not that she could possibly admit it
to Yma. How could he? She couldn't have left Leelson! How could he have left her?

Yma went on. "Perhaps not a contract, but still тАж "

"But still nothing, Yma. I had a child because I wanted a child." That was partly true. She kept her lip
from trembling with considerable effort. After the initial shock, she had wanted a child.

"Well, of course you did, darling, but it was a genetic risk. With him."

"Fastigat men father normal children on non-Fastigat women all the time!"

Yma couldn't leave it at that. "Well, there are no aberrations in your family line."

"You don't know that!" Lutha cried.

"Oh, yes I do and so do you. Even though we've never met them, we know all about Papa's side of the
family. They're all totally ordinary, ordinary, ordinary!" To Yma, nothing could be worse.

Lutha did indeed know a great deal about Papa's family, and his many siblings and half siblings out on
the frontier. Frontier worlds began with a colony ship, a few hundred crew members, and a hundred
thousand human embryos. Thirteen or fourteen years later the original embryos were boys and girls who
began procreating on their own, using the cr├иche equipment on the ship. A few decades, the colony might
number in the millions! Twenty children per woman was not uncommon, virtually all of them cr├иche-born.
In a homo-normed world, there were few impediments. No dangerous diseases, little danger from
weather, no danger from plants or animalsтАФin fact few plants and no animals at all.

"Mama Jibia does go on and on about the kinfolk," Lutha admitted.

"She's never said anything indicating they're anything but boring. And Mama's family, we know all about,
both sides, four generations back. Her mother is Lucca Pineapple, and we've met her. Remember?"

"The religious grandma," said Lutha with vague discomfort at the memory. "Who visited us on her way
through the sector."

"Exactly. You do remember! We thought her very strange! Well, women who depilate and tattoo their
entire bodiesare strange. But that's simply attitudinal; biologically she's quite all right. And Mama Jibia is
always telling stories about Lucca's motherтАФNitha Bonetree, remember, the one who first ran away to
the frontier?"
 "Which is where Lucca was born, and Mama too. I guess I remember some of that. Mama Jibia always
said we'd inherited our talents from Nitha's line."