"Sarah Zettel - Kingdom of Cages" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zettel Sarah)

aunts and uncles and cousinsтАж?
When she couldn't answer all the questions, especially the ones about
her family, the woman in white overalls looked disgusted, pulled out a
syringe, and gestured for Chena to hold out her arm.
But they'd finally had enough of that and had put her in a sterile-walled
waiting room already filled to bursting with peopleтАФmen, women, kids,
and babies, none of whom had been in the car on the space cable that
had brought Chena and her family down to Pandora, and none of whom
smelled like they had shower stalls in their apartments. Their old
apartments. All of them were immigrants, like she was now.
It had been about an hour before whoever was giving Teal her
going-over let her into the waiting room too. Teal had been scared, of
course, but at least she didn't look like she was ready to cry, which she
would have if this had happened even just last year. Chena grabbed
Teal's hand and peered around through the crowd, looking for
someplace where they could stand. A pair of old men in orange overalls
that looked ready to fall off their skinny bodies shuffled sideways and
gestured to Chena that she could stand by the wall. Chena nodded her
thanks and steered Teal toward the empty spot.
Chena leaned against the wall, and so did Teal, but she collapsed her
knees until she'd slid all the way to the floor.
Chena looked down at her younger sister for a long moment. Teal had
just turned ten. She looked like Mom. Everybody said so. She had
Mom's sandy brown skin and high round forehead, black hair that fell
back in waves around her ears. She had Mom's shining brown eyes, and
was stocky like Mom was too, with square hands but round legs.
Chena, on the other hand, was thirteen going on fourteen and looked like
their fatherтАФtan skin, thick and wiry hair that was more brown than
black, a sharp face, a wide full mouth, and deep-set eyes of midnight
blue. Everything about her seemed too long right nowтАФarms, legs,
hands, feet. She was still getting used to the fact that she could look
Mom in the eye without tilting her head up, and that she needed to wear
a bra.
Teal wrapped her arms around her legs and hugged them to her chest,
turning her head so her cheek rested on her knees and she could look
back up at Chena.
"What do you think Dad's doing?" she asked. Her voice was small and
furtive and a little impatient. She wanted to start a story.
Chena sighed. Ever since Dad had left them last year, they'd been
making up stories about what had happened to him. All they knew for
sure was that he'd failed to rejoin his ship in the port of a world called
Rupert's Choice and they'd left without him. There'd been no news since
then, even though Mom had talked to every bureaucrat on the station.
He'd probably just left them. Parents did that sometimes. There were
kids in the halls on Athena who'd had both parents just dump them.
But maybe not. Maybe he was really out there doing something
important and he'd come back for them.
Oh, well, it's better than her whining. Chena sat cross-legged next to
Teal. "Okay." She pulled her leg in as a big dark woman shuffled past,
looking for someone or something. "Let me see." She pressed her