"Delany, Samuel R - The Einstein Intersection 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

"You're from Branning-at-sea?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Then you're going home."
He nodded again.
Silent, we rode on till at last I began to play with tired fingers. Green-eye sang some more as we jogged under the moon.
I learned that his mother was a fine lady in Branning-at-sea, related to many important political leaders. He had been sent away with Spider to herd dragons for a year. He was returning at last to his mother, this year of wandering and work serving as some sort of passage rite. There was a great deal in the thin, bushy haired boy, so skilled with the flock, I didn't understand.
"Me?" I asked when his eye inquired of me in the last of

the moonlight. "I don't have any time for the finery of Branning-at-sea as you describe it. I'll be glad to see it, passing. But I got things to do."
Silent inquiry.
"I'm going to Kid Death to get Friza, and stop what's killing all the different ones. That probably means stopping Kid Death."
He nodded.
"You don't know who Friza is," I said. "Why are you nodding?"
He cocked his head oddly, then looked across the herd.
I am different so I bring words to singers when I sing.
I nodded and thought about Kid Death. "I hate him," I said. "I have to learn to hate him more so I can find him and kill him."
There is no death, only love.
That one arrived sideways.
"What was that again?"
He wouldn't repeat it. Which made me think about it more. He looked sadly out from the work-grime. At the horizon, the fat moon darkened with clouds. Strands of shadow through the thatch of his hair widened over the rest of his face. He blinked; he turned away. We finished our circuit, chased back two dragons. The moon, revealed once more, was a polished bone joint jammed on the sky. We woke Knife and Stinky, who rose and moved to their dragons.
The coals gave the only color. And for one moment when Green-eye crouched to stare at some pattern snaking the ashes, the light cast up on his single-eyed face. He stretched beside the fire.
I slept well, but a movement before dawn roused me. The moon was down. Starlight paled the sand. The coals were dead. One dragon hissed. Two moaned. Silence. Knife and Stinky were returning. Spider and Batt were getting up.
I drifted off and woke again when only one slop of blue lightened the eastern dunes. Batt's dragon came around the fireplace. Spider's lumbered after him. I rose on my elbows.
"Keeping you up?" Spider asked.
"Huh?"
"I was running over the Kodaly again."
"Oh." I could hear it coming across the chill sand. "Naw." I got to my feet. They were about to start around again. "Just a second. I'll go around with you. There's something I want to ask you. I'd have been up in a little while anyway."
He didn't wait but I swung on my dragon and caught up.
He laughed softly when I reached his side. "Wait till you've been out here a few more days. You won't be so ready to give up that last few minutes' sleep."
"I'm too sore to sleep," I said, though the jogging was beginning to loosen stiff me. The coolness had set my joints.
"What did you want to ask me?"
"About Kid Death."
"What about him?"
"You say you knew him. Where can I find him?"
Spider was silent. My Mount slipped in the road and caught his balance again before he answered. "Even if I could tell, even if telling you would do any good, why should I? The Kid could get rid of you like that." He popped his whip on the sand. Grains flew. "I don't think the Kid would appreciate my going around telling people who want to kill him where to find him."
"I don't suppose it would make much difference if he's as strong as you say he is." I ran my thumb over the machete's mouthpiece.
Spider shrugged some of his shoulders. "Maybe not But, like I say, the Kid's my friend."
"Got you under his thumb too, huh?" It's difficult to be cutting with a cliche. I tried.
"Just about," Spider said.
I flicked my whip at a dragon who looked like he was thinking of leaving. He yawned, shook his mane, and lay back down. "I guess in a way he's even got me. He said I would try to find him until I had learned enough. Then I'd try to run away."
"He's playing with you," Spider said. He had a mocking smile.
"He's really got us all tied up."
"Just about," Spider said again.
I frowned. "Just about isn't all."
"Well," Spider said in some other direction than mine, "there are a few he can't touch, like his father. That's why he had to get me to kill him."
"Who?"
"Green-eye is one. Green-eye's mother is another."
"Green-eye?" In my repetition of the name I'd asked a question. Perhaps he didn't hear. Perhaps he chose not to answer.
So I asked another, "Why did Green-eye have to leave Branning-at-sea? He half explained to me last night, but I didn't quite get it."
"He has no father," Spider said. He seemed more ready to talk of this.