"Brin, David - Uplift 5 - Infinity's Shore" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)



Those earliest agonies, right after the crash, had screeched coarsely from wounds and scalding burns-a gale of such fierce torment that he barely noticed when a motley crew of local savages rowed out to him in a makeshift boat, like sinners dragging a fallen angel out of the boggy fen. Saving him from drowning, only to face more damnations.

а

Beings who insisted that he fight for his broken life, when it would have been so much easier just to let go.

а

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

а

Afflictions of the mind.

а

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 numbness-a raw vacancy more frustrating than an itch that can't be scratched.

а

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

а

Jijo is one of them.

а

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

а

A second word comes more easily with repeated use- Sara. She who nursed him from near death in her tree house overlooking a rustic water mill . . . who calmed the fluxing panic when he first woke to see pincers, claws, and mucusy ring stacks-the physiques of hoons, traekis, qheuens, and others sharing this rude outcast existence.

а

He knows more words, such as Kurt and Prity . . . friends he now trusts almost as much as Sara. It feels good to think their names, the slick way all words used to come, in the days before his mangling.

а

One recent prize he is especially proud of.

а

Emerson . . .

а

It is his own name, for so long beyond reach. Violent shocks had jarred it free, less than a day ago-shortly after he provoked a band of human rebels to betray their urrish allies in a slashing knife fight that made a space battle seem antiseptic by comparison. That bloody frenzy ended with an explosive blast, shattering the grubby caravan tent, spearing light past Emerson's closed lids, overwhelming the guardians of reason.