"Banks, Iain - Feersum Endjinn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Banks Iain M)

FEERSUM ENDJINN
by Iain M. Banks
Contents

[T] links to a translation of that chapterONE 1 2 3 4 [T]
TWO 1 2 3 4 [T]
THREE 1 2 3 4 [T]
FOUR 1 2 3 4 [T]
FIVE 1 2 3 4 [T]
SIX 1 2 3 4 [T]
SEVEN 1 2 3 4 [T]
EIGHT 1 2 3 4 [T]
NINE 1 2 3 4 [T]
TEN 1 2 3 4 5 [T] 6 [T]
Terminology

ONE
1

Then, it was as though everything was stripped away: sensation, memory, self, even the notion of existence that underlies realityЧall seemed to have vanished utterly, their passing marked only by the realisation that they had disappeared, before that too ceased to have any meaning, and for an indefinite, infinite instant, there was only the awareness of something; something that possessed no mind, no purpose and no thought, except the knowledge that it was.

After that came a rebuilding, a surfacing through layers of thought and development, learning and shape-taking, until something that was an individual, possessing a shape and capable of being named, woke.



Buzz. Buzzing noise. Lying on something soft. Dark. Try to open eyes. Something sticking. Try again. Light flash shaped 00. Eyes feel open, un-ark. Smells; at once vital and decadent, lush with death-life, stirring some memory, recent and forever-far at the same time. Light comes; a smallЕ searching for the name of the colourЕ a small redness hanging in air. Move arm, hand coming up; right arm; noise of skin on skin, feeling coming with it.

Arm, hand, finger: rising, positioning, eyes focusing. Red patch of soft light disappears. Press on it. Arm shaking, feeling weak; falls back to side. Skin on skin.

Click.

Noise of buzzing, something sliding again but not skin on skin; harder. Then light from behind/above. The small red light has disappeared. Then movement; darkness above/around sliding back, face neck shoulders chest/arms trunk/hands in light now; eyes blinking in light. Light grey-pink, shining down; blue-brightness through hole in curved cliff above/around.

Wait. Rest. Let eyes adjust. Songs around, wall around/above (not cliff; wall), curving round, curving over (ceiling; roof). Hole in wall where the brightness is called a window.

Lie there, turning head to one side; another hole, glimpsed over shoulder; goes down to ground, and called doorway. Daylight there beyond, and the green of trees and grass. Floor beneath where lying; pressed earth, light brown with a few small stones set in it. The song is birdsong.

Get up slowly, arms back, resting on elbows, looking down towards feet; woman, naked, colour of the ground.

Ground is quite near; might as well stand up. Sit up further, swivel (dizzy for a moment, then steady), then feet/legs over side ofЕ ofЕ tray thing that has appeared out of hole in wall of building, tray thing lying on, and thenЕ stand.

Hold onto tray, legs feeling funny, then stand properly, unaided, and stretch. Stretch feels good. Tray slides back into wall; watch it go, and watch part of wall slide down to cover hole that was there, hole came out of. FeelЕ sadness, but feelЕ good, too. Deep breath.

Breath makes noise, then cough makes noise, andЕ voice is there. Clear throat, then say:

'Speak.'

Slight startle. Voice makes a feeling in throat and face. Touch face, feelЕ smile. 'Smile.' Feel something building up inside. 'Face.' Still building. 'Face smile.' And still. 'Face smile good alive hole red wall me look door doorway sun garden, ME!'

Then the laughter comes, bursting out, filling the little stone rotunda and spilling out into the garden; a small bird hurtles into the air in a commotion of leaves and flies away upon a wake of song.