JК
The Lovers :: Фармер Филип Хосе
Страница: 90 из 127She kissed him and asked if he wanted to come into the kitchen while she cooked. He said that would be fine.
She began making a sort of spaghetti. He asked her to tell him about her life. Once started, she was not hard to keep going.
'. . . and so my father's people found a planet like Earth and settled there. It was a beautiful planet; that is why they called it Wuhbopfey, the beautiful land.
'According to my father, there are about thirty million living there on one continent. My father was not content to live the life his grandfathers had lived – tilling the soil or running a shop and raising many children. He and some other young men like him took the only spaceship left of the original six that had come there, and they sailed off to the stars. They came to Ozagen. And crashed. No wonder. The ship was so old.'
'Is the wreck still around?'
'Fi. Close to where my sisters and aunts and cousins live.'
'Your mother is dead?'
She hesitated, then nodded. 'Yes. She died giving birth to me. And my sisters. My father died later. Or rather, we think he did. He went on a hunting party and never came back.'
Hal frowned, and he said, 'You told me that your mother and aunts were the last of the native human beings on Ozagen. That isn't so. Fobo told me that there are at least a thousand small isolated groups in the back-lands. And you said once before that Rastignac was the only Earthman to get out alive from the wreck. He was your mother's husband, naturally... and incredible as it sounds, their union – one of the terrestrial and an extraterrestrial – was fertile! That alone would rock my colleagues on their heels. It's completely contrary to accepted science that their body chemistry and chromosomes should match! But – what I'm getting at is that your mother's sisters had children, too. if the last human male of your group died years before Rastignac crashed, who was their father?'
'My father, Jean-Jacques Rastignac. He was the husband of my mother and my three aunts. They all said that he was a superb lover, very experienced, very virile.'
Hal said, 'Oh.'
Until she had the spaghetti and salad ready, he watched her in silence. By then he had regained some of his moral perspective. After all, the Frenchman was not too much worse than he himself was. Maybe not as bad. He chuckled. How easy it was to condemn somebody else for giving way to temptation until you yourself faced the same situation. He wondered what Pornsen would have done if Jeannette had contacted him.
'...
She began making a sort of spaghetti. He asked her to tell him about her life. Once started, she was not hard to keep going.
'. . . and so my father's people found a planet like Earth and settled there. It was a beautiful planet; that is why they called it Wuhbopfey, the beautiful land.
'According to my father, there are about thirty million living there on one continent. My father was not content to live the life his grandfathers had lived – tilling the soil or running a shop and raising many children. He and some other young men like him took the only spaceship left of the original six that had come there, and they sailed off to the stars. They came to Ozagen. And crashed. No wonder. The ship was so old.'
'Is the wreck still around?'
'Fi. Close to where my sisters and aunts and cousins live.'
'Your mother is dead?'
She hesitated, then nodded. 'Yes. She died giving birth to me. And my sisters. My father died later. Or rather, we think he did. He went on a hunting party and never came back.'
Hal frowned, and he said, 'You told me that your mother and aunts were the last of the native human beings on Ozagen. That isn't so. Fobo told me that there are at least a thousand small isolated groups in the back-lands. And you said once before that Rastignac was the only Earthman to get out alive from the wreck. He was your mother's husband, naturally... and incredible as it sounds, their union – one of the terrestrial and an extraterrestrial – was fertile! That alone would rock my colleagues on their heels. It's completely contrary to accepted science that their body chemistry and chromosomes should match! But – what I'm getting at is that your mother's sisters had children, too. if the last human male of your group died years before Rastignac crashed, who was their father?'
'My father, Jean-Jacques Rastignac. He was the husband of my mother and my three aunts. They all said that he was a superb lover, very experienced, very virile.'
Hal said, 'Oh.'
Until she had the spaghetti and salad ready, he watched her in silence. By then he had regained some of his moral perspective. After all, the Frenchman was not too much worse than he himself was. Maybe not as bad. He chuckled. How easy it was to condemn somebody else for giving way to temptation until you yourself faced the same situation. He wondered what Pornsen would have done if Jeannette had contacted him.
'...