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

kit, tablets, a wire saw, even a teeny-tiny button compass. And there was a
little canister of dark crystals that turned out to be potassium permanganate.

Following the instructions on the can - to her shame she had to use her knife's
lens to read them - she dropped crystals into the water until it turned a pale
red.

Maxie turned up his nose, until his mother convinced him the funny red water was
a kind of cola.

Habits from ancient camping trips came back to Emma now. For instance, you
weren't supposed to lose anything. So she carefully packed all her gear back
into its tobacco tin, and put it in an inside pocket she was able to zip up. She
took a bit of parachute cord and tied her Swiss Army knife around her neck, and
tucked it inside her flight suit, and zipped that up too.

And while she was fiddling with her toys, Sally began shuddering.

'Greg. My husband. Oh my God. They killed him. They just crushed his skull. The
ape-men. Just like that. I saw them do it. It's true, isn't it?'

Emma put down her bits of kit with reluctance.

'Isn't it strange?' Sally murmured. 'Greg isn't here. But I never thought to ask
why he isn't here. And all the time, in the back of my mind, I knew... Do you
think there's something wrong with me?'

'No,' Emma said, as soothing as she could manage. 'Of course not. It's very
hard, a very hard thing to take -'

And then Sally just fell apart, as Emma had known, inevitably, she must. The
three of them huddled together, in the rain, as Sally wept.


It was dark before Sally was cried out. Maxie was already asleep, his little
warm form huddled between their two bodies.

The rain had stopped. Emma pulled down her rough canopy, and wrapped it around
them.

Now Sally wanted to talk, whispering in the dark.

She talked of her holiday-of-a-lifetime in Africa, and how Maxie was doing at
nursery school, another child, a daughter, at home, and her career and Greg's,
and how they had been considering a third child or perhaps opting for a frozen
embryo deferred pregnancy, pending a time when they might be less busy.

And Emma told her about her life, her career, about Malenfant. She tried to find
the gentlest, most undemanding stories she could think of.