Cuckoo's Egg

Начало книги

He sat in a room, the sand of which was synthetic and shining with opal tints, fine and light beneath his bare feet. The windows held no city view, but a continuously rotating panorama of the Khogghut plain: a lie. Traffic noise came through. His name was Duun. It was Dana Duun Shtoni no Lughn. But Duun was enough for day-today. They called him other things. Sey:general. Mingi: lord. Or something very like. Hatani: that was another thing. But Duun was enough now. There was only one. Shonunin the world over knew that, and knew him; and when the door chimed and they came to bring the alien to him, those who carried it would not look him in the eyes, not alone for the scars that a shonun could see, the pale smooth marks traced through the fur of half his face like the limbs of a lightning-blasted tree, the marks that twisted his right ear and left his mouth quirked in permanent irony and one eye staring out of ruin.

Читать дальше →