"Timothy Zahn - A Coming of Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zahn Timothy)

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A Coming of Age


Hanging up, Jarvis glanced out the window once more to make sure Colin was still in sight before
heading outside. Walking around the corner of the cabin, he managed to duck as a seed pod came
sailing through the air. It rounded the edge and he heard it drop to the ground.

"I can't make it go round the house," Colin complained as Jarvis came up.

"Well, that's because you can't see it after it goes around the corner," Jarvis told him, sitting down
beside the boy. "In order to teek something you have to be able to either see it or touch it."

"Why?"

"Well..." It was a good question, actually, one nobody had ever figured out a satisfactory answer to.
"It's just the way things are, I guess."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Tell you whatтАФwhy don't we see if you can figure out a way to do it." He glanced
around. "Would you teek a seed pod over here, please?"

"Okay." From above them came the snich of a green stem being broken, and Jarvis looked up as a
pod drifted down. "Why do the branches go around?" Colin asked.

Jarvis reached out to catch the pod as Colin, shifting his attention to the spiral limb arrangement of
the conetree, lost control of it. "A lot of plants have leaves that spiral up a stem like that," he
explained. "The conetree just takes the process a bit farther and does it with branches, too."

"Why?"

"Probably to let all the leaves get as much sunlight as possible. You seeтАФon that conetree, over
thereтАФsee how the branches get shorter as you go up? That keeps the upper branches from shading
the lower ones and lets all the leaves get sunlight."

"Why do they need sunlight?"

"It's one of the things they eat," Jarvis said briefly. He'd fallen into this trap with Colin already twice
in the past two days. The boy wasn't interested in answers nearly as much as he was in keeping the
string of questions going as long as possible. "Here, let's do an experiment, okay?" he suggested,
holding up the pod.

"What's a 'speriment?"

"A way to keep little boys quiet," Jarvis said, tapping him lightly on the nose with the pod.

Colin giggled and Jarvis moved the pod thirty centimeters away, holding it horizontally by one end
at the level of the boy's eyes. "Wiggle the pod a little, would you? Just a little," he added hastily as