"Baxter, Stephen - Manifold 03 - Origin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Baxter Stephen)

He makes his hand hold out the caterpillar.

Emma's eyes stare at it. It is wet from his spit. Her hand reaches out and takes
it.

The caterpillar is in her mouth. She chews. He hears it crunch. She swallows,
hard. 'Good. Thank you.'

Fire's nose can smell meat more strongly now. Stone's axe has cracked the rib
cage. Whatever is in the new person's belly may be good to eat.

The other new woman wakes up. Her eyes look at the corpse, at what the people
are doing there. She screams. Emma's hand clamps over her mouth. The woman
struggles.

The people crowd close around the corpse. Fire joins them.

He has forgotten the new people.




-II-
RED MOON

Emma Stoney:

Her chest hurt. Every time she took a breath she was gasping and dragging, as if
she had been running too far, or as if she was high on a mountainside.

That was the first thing Emma noticed.

The second thing was the dreaminess of moving here.

When she walked - even on the slippery grass, encumbered by her clumsy flight
suit - she felt light, buoyant. But she kept tripping up. It was easy to walk
slowly, but every time she tried to move at what seemed a normal pace she
stumbled, as if about to take off. Eventually she evolved a kind of half-jog,
somewhere between walking and running.

Also she was strong here. When she struggled to drag the woman - Sally? - out of
the rain and into the comparative shelter of the trees, with the crying kid at
her heels, she felt powerful, able to lift well above her usual limit.

The forest was dense, gloomy. The trees seemed to be conifers -impossibly tall,
towering high above her, making a roof of green - but here and there she saw
ferns, huge ancient broad-leafed plants. The forest canopy gave them some
shelter, but still great fat droplets of water came shimmering down on them.
When the droplets hit her flesh they clung - and they stung. She noticed how
shrivelled and etiolated many of the trees' leaves looked. Acid rain?...