"Baxter, Stephen - Huddle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

He found himself plunged into dark fluid. He tried to breathe, and got a
mouthful of chill water. He panicked, helpless, scrabbling. Dark shapes moved
around him.

A strong arm wrapped around him, lifted his head into the air. He gasped
gratefully.

He was bobbing, with his mother, in one of the holes in the ice. There were
other humans here, their furry heads poking out of the water, nostrils flaring
as they gulped in air. They nibbled steadily at the edges of the ice.

"Here's how you eat," No-Sun said. She ducked under the surface, pulling him
down, and she started to graze at the underside of the ice, scraping at it with
her long incisors. When she had a mouthful, she mushed it around to melt the
ice, then squirted the water out through her big, overlapping molars and
premolars, and munched the remnants.

He tried to copy her, but his gums were soft, his teeth tiny and ineffective.

"Your teeth will grow," his mother said. "There's algae growing in the ice. See
the red stuff?"

He saw it, like traces of blood in the ice. Dim understandings stirred.

"Look after your teeth."

"What?"

"Look at him."

A fat old man sat on the ice, alone, doleful.

"What's wrong with him?"

"His teeth wore out." She grinned at him, showing incisors and big canines.

He stared at the old man.

The long struggle of living had begun.

LATER, THE LIGHT started to fade from the sky: purple, black, stars. Above the
western mountains there was a curtain of light, red and violet, ghostly,
shimmering, semi-transparent.

He gasped in wonder. "It's beautiful."

She grinned. "The night dawn."

But her voice was uneven; she was being pulled under the water by a heavy