"Ballard, J G - Cloud Scultors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ballard J G)

was Nolan's, and that we were all serving some private
whim of this dark-haired solitary. At the time, however, I
was more concerned with teaching them to flyfirst on cable,
mastering the updraughts that swept the stunted turret of
Coral A, smallest of the towers, then ithe steeper slopes of
B and C, and finally the powerful currents of Coral D. Late
one afternoon, when I began to wind them in, Nolan cut
away his line. The glider plummeted onto its back, diving
down to impale itself on the rock spires. I flung myself to
the ground as the cable whipped across my car, shattering the
windshield. When I looked up, Nolan was soaring high in
the tinted air above Coral D. The wind, guardian of the
coral towers, carried him through the islands of cumulus that
veiled the evening light.
As I ran to the winch, the second cable went, and little
Manuel swerved away to join Nolan. Ugly crab on the
ground, in the air the hunchback became a bird with im-
mense wings, outflying both Nolan and Van Eyck. I watched
them as they circled the coral towers, and then swept down
together over the, desert floor, stirring the sand-rays into
soot-like clouds. Petit Manuel was jubilant. He strutted
around me like a pocket Napoleon, contemptuous of my
broken leg, scooping up handfuls of broken glass and tossing
them over his head like bouquets to the air.
Two months later, as we drove out to Coral D on the day
we were to meet Leonora Chanel, something of this first
feeling of exhilaration had faded. Now that the season had
ended few tourists travelled to Lagoon West, and often we
would perform our cloud-sculpture to the empty highway.
Sometimes Nolan would remain behind in his hotel, drink-
ing by himself on the bed, or Van Eyck would disappear
for several days with some widow or divorcee, and Petit
M'anuel and I would go out alone.
Nonetheless, as the four of us drove out in my car that
afternoon and saw the clouds waiting for us above the spire
of Coral D, all my depression and fatigue vanished. Ten
minutes later the three cloud-gliders rose into the air and the
first cars began to stop on the highway. Nolan was in the
lead in his black-winged glider, climbing straight to the
crown of Coral D two hundred feet above, while Van Eyck
soared to and fro below, showing his blond mane to a mid-
dle-aged woman in a topaz convertible. Behind them came
little Manuel, his candy-striped wings slipping and churning
in the disturbed air. Shouting happy obscenities, he flew with
his twisted knees, huge arms gesticulating out of the cockpit.
The three gliders, brilliant painted toys, revolved like laz-
ing birds above Coral D, waiting for the first clouds to pass
overhead. Van Eyck moved away to take a cloud. He sailed
around its white pillow, spraying the sides with iodide
crystals and cutting away the flock-like tissue. The steaming