"David Brin - The Loom of Thessaly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

"The Loom of Thessaly"


a novella by David Brin
Currently published in The River of Time.
Copyright й 1981, by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

"You can't get there from here."
At the time, Pavlos Apropoulos thought his American friend was joking. Now he wasn't so
sure.
"Try it and see," Frank had said. "It's less than 250 kilometers from Athens, and I'll bet you
can't even get close to it!"
That had been easy enough for Frank to say, sitting in the comfort of Pavlos's Athens
apartment. He wasn't going to be the one who went alone, into the wilderness, to test it.

Pavlos's arms felt as if they were about to come off. The branch he was holding on to
might tear free at any second, leaving him without any firm support. Yet his feet couldn't
seem to find a purchase.
There was dust everywhere. The canyon was filled with a clay pungence that mixed with
the overripe odors of bramble bush and perspiration. He could taste blood from one of the cuts
he'd taken on his face, during the panicky scramble down the flaky, slippery talus.
This was the easiest route. He was sure of it.
The branch tore loose just as Pavlos got his right foot settled on an uncertain chunk of
partially decomposed granite. For a moment he teetered. The canyon wavering about him in a
blur of hazy green thorn bushes and a narrow strip of cloudy sky.
Pavlos threw the cluster of twigs away and grabbed for another hold. But dry leaves came
off like chaff in his hands as the ground crumbled beneath him.
The brush that had been so formidable in blocking his earlier descent now broke and
parted in front of him like chips flying from an axe. Branches tore and whipped at his arms,
which he vainly tried to keep over his face as he fell, running and crashing, down the steep
slope.
Somehow, he stayed on his feet, though they skidded on the powdery surface. The
shrubbery thickened toward the bottom and the slope flattened, but this slowed him only
slightly as the headlong rush sent him splashing across a small rivulet of dirty water to slam,
arms outstretched, into the opposite canyon wall.
Fragments of desiccated, ancient rock rained down upon him as he labored to catch his
breath in a series of shuddering gasps. The clumps fell in a steady stream -- a miniature
landslide onto the back of his head.
Pavlos stood still, taking things in order. He wasn't ready to begin cataloguing the bruises
and scrapes he had taken. The thudding of loose gravel on his skull meant no more to his
overloaded senses than the chalky, rank odor of dust and sweat which he took in with each
ragged breath, or the almost unbearable weight of his backpack.
The landfall subsided at about the same rate as Pavlos's breathing. Dust settled, leaving a
fine white patina on his hair and hunched shoulders. He waited a few moments longer, eyes
shut tightly against the floating grit, listening to the fading creakings his passage down the
scarp had set off. When finally he looked around, Pavlos shuddered.
In thirty years of mountaineering he had seen many ravines like this, but this was the first
time he had ever been in one. There had never been a need, before. There had always been
another way... an easier route.
Not this time, though. The place where he had come down was the best he had found in