"Paul Di Filippo - Shipbreaker" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

"You didn't take any chances, did you?" asked Sorrel, looking alarmed.

Airey patted her hand. "Not at all. I have no desire to be drilled through the heart by an angry
busybee, believe me! But I was able to overhear the high and mighty ones discussing the origin of this
ship. It's a Vixen craft. Most recently made the circuit among Bastiaan, Meuse, and Greengage for
centuries. But it's much older than that. Parts of it were decommissioned over a thousand years ago.
That's where I'd head first if I were you, Klom. Deva knows what goodies you'll find there!"

Klom considered the information, ruminating over it in his slow, stolid fashion. Any idea introduced
into Klom's brain met with a laborious reception, but frequently he ground a notion to a finer intellectual
dust than the more quick-witted Airey ever could, with surprising results.

"I'll do that, Airey. Anything special I should look for?"

"Oh, I don't know тАж What about the Book of Forgetting?"

Sorrel laughed, but sourly this time. "Why not hope to find a globe of Mazarine isinglass, or a Ledan
swanrobe or a map to the treasures of Mount Sumeru while you're at it?" Here she broke mockingly into
a snatch of song: "'The fields of pleasure, the seas of love/Heavenly eyes that peer from above.тАж' And
how would anyone even recognize the mythical Book of Forgetting?"

"Oh, if half of what's said about it is true, I suspect the finder would quickly realize what he'd found.
The legends are evocative, though not precise. The Book is nothing less than the universal anodyne for all
our mortal sufferingтАФ"

Suddenly the crowd surged forward en masse, breaking around Klom's immovable bulk, which
protected his companions as well.

"What's happening?" asked Klom.

"I assume the marabouts are about to invoke a deva to bless the proceedings," said Airey.

"Lift me up," Sorrel said, and I'll tell you what I can see."

Klom's hands encircled Sorrel's torso just as her O-ring bracelets encircled her wrist. His fingers and
thumbs met across her span. In half a second she stood on his shoulders, her sandaled feet finding plenty
of purchase on Klom's broad frame, while he braced her behind her thighs. Canopying her hands, Sorrel
shielded her eyes against the triple sunlight.

"Yes, I see it all now. Several marabouts are riding a lifter out to the ship. Oh, how beautiful their
robes are, billowing in the wind! Oops, one's lost his miter! They've stopped now, not far from the ship.
They're making the sacrifice. I think they're using a Redskull ox." A tremulous bellow cut short drifted
across the waters. "Now they're feeding power to the prayer wheels. Get ready for the boomtubeтАФ"

Airey covered his ears, as did Sorrel. Klom seemed unconcerned, but in any case did not cease
supporting Sorrel.

If the might of the tidal surge hitting the baffles had produced a noise akin to the collapse of a small
house, then the manifestation of the deva's boomtube generated a soundwave resembling the demolition
of one of Voyule's cloudscraper towers. The whole crowd staggered backward, with some losing their