"Scott Westerfeld - Uglies 1 - Uglies" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

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Text copyright й 2005 by Scott Westerfeld

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Library of Congress Control Number 2004106866

ISBN: 1-4169-3450-2

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Part I

Turning Pretty

Is it not good to make society full
of beautiful people?

ЧYang Yuan, quoted inThe New York Times

New Pretty Town

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.

Of course, Tally thought, youТd have to feed your cat only salmon-flavored cat food for a while, to get the pinks right. The scudding clouds did look a bit fishy, rippled into scales by a high-altitude wind. As the light faded, deep blue gaps of night peered through like an upside-down ocean, bottomless and cold.

Any other summer, a sunset like this would have been beautiful. But nothing had been beautiful since Peris turned pretty. Losing your best friend sucks, even if itТs only for three months and two days.

а

Tally Youngblood was waiting for darkness.

She could see New Pretty Town through her open window. The party towers were already lit up, and snakes of burning torches marked flickering pathways through the pleasure gardens. A few hot-air balloons pulled at their tethers against the darkening pink sky, their passengers shooting safety fireworks at other balloons and passing parasailers. Laughter and music skipped across the water like rocks thrown with just the right spin, their edges just as sharp against TallyТs nerves.

Around the outskirts of the city, cut off from town by the black oval of the river, everything was in darkness. Everyone ugly was in bed by now.

Tally took off her interface ring and said, УGood night.Ф

УSweet dreams, Tally,Ф said the room.

She chewed up a toothbrush pill, punched her pillows, and shoved an old portable heaterЧone that produced about as much warmth as a sleeping, Tally-size human beingЧunder the covers.