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

The forest seemed strangely quiet. No birdsong, she thought. Come to think of it
she hadn't seen a bird in the time she'd been here.

The flat-head people - hominids, whatever - did not follow her into the forest,
and as their hooting calls receded she felt vaguely reassured. But that was
outweighed by a growing unease, for it was very dark, here in the woods. The kid
seemed to feel that too, for he went very quiet, his eyes round.

But then, she thought resentfully, she was disoriented, spooked, utterly
bewildered anyhow - she had just been through a plane wreck, for God's sake, and
then hurled through time and space to wherever the hell - and being scared in a
forest was scarcely much different from being scared on the open plain.

... What forest? What plain? What is this place? Where am I?

Too much strangeness: panic brushed her mind.

But the blood continued to pulse from that crude gash on Sally's arm, an injury
she had evidently suffered on the way here, from wherever. And the kid sat down
on the forest floor and cried right along with his mother, great bubbles of snot
blowing out of his nose.

First things first, Emma.

The kid gazed up at her with huge empty eyes. He looked no older than three.

Emma got down on her knees. The kid shrank back from her, and she made an effort
to smile. She searched the pockets of her flight suit, seeking a handkerchief,
and finding everything but. At last she dug into a waist pocket of Sally's
jacket - she was wearing what looked like designer safari gear, a khaki jacket
and pants -and found a paper tissue.

'Blow,' she commanded.

With his nose wiped, the boy seemed a bit calmer.

'What's your name?'

'Maxie.' His tiny voice was scale-model Bostonian.

'Okay, Maxie. My name's Emma. I need you to be brave now. We have to help your
mom. Okay?'

He nodded.

She dug through her suit pockets. She found a flat plastic box. It turned out to
contain a rudimentary first aid kit: scissors, plasters, safety pins, dressings,
bandages, medical tape, salves and creams.