Brian Stableford - Hooded Swan 03 by Promised Land

Author:Promised Land
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-02-08T22:50:39+00:00

10

There was a certain amount of friction between Max and Danel. It was not that Danel was uncooperative— like all the Anacaona, Danel was the soul of cooperation—nor that Max was overexhibiting his dislike for the Anacaona. It was simply a clash of roles. Insofar as it was a war at all, it was a cold and bloodless one.

In my opinion, Danel cast a slight shadow on the picture Micheal had inspired in me of the Anacaona as the perfect people to share a planet with. I wished that I could talk to him, or to Mercede, because I had a feeling that they might put the whole story in a different light.

But I could only talk about Danel—to Micheal, to Linda, and to Max. When we were in the tent that evening, Max and I had a quiet drink before bedtime. I felt that it was some measure of acceptance that he offered me a share of his private supply of booze. Perhaps he was relenting. It didn’t endear him to me greatly, though. Not much.

“You don’t get on with Danel, do you?” I said. I wasn’t enamored of Max’s line in private chitchat, so I thought I might as well come straight to the points which interested me.

“I don’t like him,” said Max.

“Why not?”

“Because he makes a big thing out of being a big guy. He kills spiders with his ax just for the fun of it, and sets his little brother up to play tunes for them while he does it. He makes a big thing about being at home in the forest and I’m damned if he knows the place any better than I do. He isn’t wild, no matter how much he pretends. He’s a fake.”

“Strikes me that ought to offend Linda more than it bugs you,” I said. “I thought she was the one who was deeply into sharing the planet with the Anacaona. I thought you wanted to leave them alone to do whatever they want.”

“You’re on a different wavelength, Grainger,” he told me. “I don’t give a damn about goldens in general. I don’t think we have to look after them because they’re part and parcel of our beloved planet. I don’t give a damn about anything that doesn’t touch me. But Danel touches me. Here and now. If he’s going to help us, he should help us and forget this bloody no-speak pantomime.”

“You don’t care about why he is that way?”

“No. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against goldens. Just because I turned down their invitation to supper the other night doesn’t mean to say I can’t stand to set foot in their homes. It’s just that I don’t like this whole farce about who does what when. They’re all too bloody nice or too bloody distant. They’re a bunch of hypocrites and that’s all there is to it. They’re harmless, and they’re useful, but don’t let anyone ever tell you that they’re God’s gift to the Zodiac. Because they’re not.

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