"Brin, David - Uplift 05 - Infinity's Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

each ache and sting serves as a marker, a signpost, con-
firming that he must be on the right path.

His arrival on this worldЧplummeting through a scorched
skyЧshould have ended with merciful blankness. What
luck instead hurled his blazing body from the pyre to
quench in a fetid swamp?

Peculiar luck.

Since then, he has grown intimate with all kinds of suf-
fering, from crass pangs to subtle stings. In cataloging
them, he grows learned in the many ways there are to hurt.

Those earliest agonies, right after the crash, had

In f i n i r u's Shore 7

screeched coarsely from wounds and scalding burnsЧa
gale of such fierce torment that he barely noticed when a
motley crew of local savages rowed out to him in a make-
shift boat, like sinners dragging a fallen angel out of the
boggy fen. Saving him from drowning, only to face more

damnations.
Beings who insisted that he fight for his broken life,

when it would have been so much easier just to let go.

Later, as his more blatant injuries healed or scarred,
other types of anguish took up the symphony of pain.

Afflictions of the mind.

Holes gape across his life, vast blank zones, lightless and
empty, where missing memories must once have spanned
megaparsecs and life years. Each gap feels chilled beyond
numbnessЧa raw vacancy more frustrating than an itch

that can't be scratched.

Ever since he began wandering this singular world, he
has probed the darkness within. Optimistically, he clutches
a few small trophies from the struggle.

Jijo is one of them.

He rolls the word in his mindЧthe name of this planet
where six castaway races band together in feral truce, a
mixed culture unlike any other beneath the myriad stars.