"Gardner Dozois & Michael Swanwick - Ancestral Voices" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

тАЬDesmond, come here. Take a look at this.тАЭ
The dogтАЩs feet scrabbled wildly on the floor, but her grip was firm. тАЬLook at
what?тАЭ Desmond said. He ambled up, calculator in hand, and peered over her
shoulder. тАЬThatтАЩs just a patch of shadow.тАЭ
тАЬThere never was a patch of shadow shaped like that there before,тАЭ Mrs.
Kingsley said dubiously. A momentary twinge of arthritis hit her then, and her hold
on IagoтАЩs collar loosened.
All hell broke loose.


It lay watching, not knowing that it did not blend in against the snow,
assuming that the sophontsтАЩ awareness would be as dazzled by the downfalling
flakes as was its own.
It had flattened against the snowтАЩs surface the instant that the door opened
with a great outrushing of warmth. The shifts of ionization and static charges in the
air made the doorway a shimmering beacon, bright and inviting, and only the faint,
almost undetectable flickers of fire-of-life within that wash of liquid warmth kept it
from leaping forward at that very instant. Wary, it crouched, waiting.
Then the dog came flying through the air to attack it.
The beast was large and fierce, plowing through and scattering snow, howling
and barking as it came. Terrified, the creature fled, butтАФcunning, desperateтАФit fled
straight for the door, risking everything on a frontal attack, a savage, killing assault
on whatever might lie in its path.
In the doorway, the black beast ravening and almost upon it, its perception
cleared, and it found that only two enemies stood between it and shelter. The first
fell aside, shrinking back against the wall as it charged forward, and it could ignore
her, making for the second who was just beyond her, and who was bigger, with
more fire-of-life in him.
Berserk, it sprang at the man, who stumbled back, involuntarily flinging up a
hand to fend it off. There was an object in that hand, a glittering complex of
resistance paths that held a shimmering, shifting structure of energies, a vastly
simplified and purified version of what lay within living beings.
A concept came searing up from the shuttered and forbidden parts of its
mind, breaking through the pain: WEAPON! WEAPON! WEAPON! and it turned in
midair, reshaping its structure and seizing hold of a wall so that it slammed aside and
away from the thing. The beast leaped up after it, and for an instant almost had it,
and then it fled down the hall and away.
In terror and wild confusion it was driven through several rooms and up a
stairway. It took the first opening off of the hall it could find, and discovered itself in
a cul-de-sac, the air all abuzz with jittery white energy, and dominated by a large,
painful glow in its center.
The beast halted, hackles rising. It was cornered, and the beast knew it.


тАЬWhat was that?тАЭ Desmond gasped.
Alma Kingsley shook her head. Her breath was still short, her face felt pallid
with shock, and she discovered that she was clutching at her heart. Disdainful of her
own weakness, she forced the hand down. Then, looking up at where IagoтАЩs frantic
baying had come to an abrupt stop, she felt seized with terror and cried, тАЬJennifer!тАЭ
Desmond easily outdistanced her, but she arrived in the guest bedroom