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


Shadow's memories were blurred and unstructured, a corridor of green and red in
which a few fragments shone, like bits of a shattered sculpture: her mother's
face, the lightness of her own body as a child, the sharp, mysterious pain of
her first bleeding. But nowhere in that dim green hall was there a flare of blue
light like that. It was strange, and therefore it was frightening.

But memories were pallid. There was only the now, clear and bright: what came
before and what would come after did not matter.

As the light gathered, the world began to emerge out of the dark green. Noise
was growing with the light, the humming of insects and the whirring flight of
bats.

Here, in this clump of trees high on an escarpment, she was at the summit of her
world. The ground fell away to the sliding black mass of the river. The trees
were scattered here, the ground bare and grey, but patches of green-black
gathered on the lower slopes, gradually becoming darker and thicker, merging as
they tumbled down the gullies and ravines that led to the river valley itself.

She knew every scrap of this terrain. She had no idea what lay beyond - no real
conception that anything lay beyond the ground she knew.

The others were stirring now. Her infant sister. Tumble, sat up on the belly of
their mother, Termite. Termite stretched, and one shapely foot raised,
silhouetted against the sky.

Shadow slid out of her nest. The pliant branches rustled back to their natural
positions. This was a fig tree, with vines festooned everywhere. Shadow found a
dense cluster of ripe fruit, and began to feed.

Soon there was a soft rain all around her, as discarded skins and seeds fell
from the lips of the folk, towards the ground.

Above her there was a sharp, sudden crack. She flinched, looking up. It was Big
Boss. His teeth bared, without so much as a stretch, he leapt out of his nest
and went leaping wildly through the trees, swaying the branches and swinging on
the vines.

Everywhere people abandoned their nests, scrambling to get out of the way of Big
Boss. The last peace of the night was broken by grunts and screams.

But one man wasn't fast enough. It was Claw, Shadow's brother, hindered by his
need to favour his useless hand, left withered by a childhood bout of polio.

Big Boss crashed directly into the nest of the younger male, smashing it
immediately. Claw, screeching, fell crashing through the branches and down to
the ground.

Big Boss scrambled after him, down to the ground. He strutted back and forth,