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

Alma Kingsley put her Manhattan down on the kitchen counterтАФcarefully, for
her arthritis was acting up againтАФand said to her granddaughter, тАЬDear child, please
do endeavor to refrain from calling me тАШGammaтАЩ in the future. It makes you sound
most deplorably winsome.тАЭ
Jennifer beamed and laughed, as she did at all of her grandmotherтАЩs more
gravely sententious pronouncements. She didnтАЩt know what they meant, but they all
sounded funny to her.
Meanwhile, however, the driver of the truck was leaning on his horn, and his
assistant was at the tailgate, wrestling an enormous crate onto the lift. тАЬCome, child,тАЭ
Mrs. Kingsley said. тАЬGet your coat. You may find this interesting.тАЭ She swept into
the yard, little Jenny trailing after her like a hyperkinetic pull-toy.
Outside, the day was cold, with a promise of snow in the airтАФa promise
seconded by a sky as uniformly gray and featureless as an old blanket. Beyond the
rocky, frozen fields, a fringe of trees marked the ravine separating Maple Hill Farm
from the Laferrier placeтАФthough their farmhouse was not visible from here. They
were isolated, alone among the Green Mountains, and that was the way Alma
Kingsley preferred it. She couldnтАЩt abide people tromping through here with their
problems and their petty jealousies and ambitions. SheтАЩd put the world behind her
more than a decade ago, when she gave up the editorship of New England
magazine, and she liked it that way.
As they crossed the yard, a flight of three military jets screamed by, only a
couple of hundred feet away, flying very low to the ground, black and sleek and
predatory as mechanical sharks. The immense noise of their passing seemed to
shake the bones of the world, and everybody looked up, Jennifer waving excitedly,
the two workmen staring at them expressionlessly for a moment and then looking
away. The jets roared away across the fields, still hugging the ground, afterburners
blazing, hopped up over a distant ridge, and were gone. They left a shocked, ringing
silence in their wake.
Alma Kingsley compressed her lips and kept walking. She didnтАЩt like military
planes flying across her land, but there was little point in complaining at a time like
this, when sheтАЩd only be ignored. They were practicing for warтАФpracticing flying
low to the ground to avoid radar, maybe, or perhaps doing mock strafing runs on
her barn or the delivery truck. TheyтАЩd get to try their hand at the real thing soon
enough, the way things were going.
Jennifer was babbling happily to her about the planes, but she ignored her.
The workmen nodded politely to her, not quite tugging the forelocks they didnтАЩt
have anyway, and she nodded stiffly back. No one spoke. She gestured for them to
unload the big crate, and tugged an inquisitive Jennifer safely out of the way while the
lift lowered it ponderously to the ground, and the men grunted it onto a hand-truck.
Iago came bounding up from wherever it is that dogs go, barking furiously at
the men, who ignored him. The huge black mongrel ran in frantic circles, from Mrs.
Kingsley to the truck and back again, until she had to take him by the collar, swat
him on the rump to get his attention, andтАФpointing firmly downwardтАФorder him to
тАЬSit!тАЭ He obeyed unhappily, watching the unloading with a worried, disapproving
expression.
She supervised the delivery, directing the workmen to take the
crateтАФcarefully!тАФinto the old barn, which had once held a few cows and maybe a
horse but now had been snugged up and served for storage space. They set the
crate down and produced hammers and pry bars, and, with a shriek and squeal of
protesting nails, the front came off, revealing her newest acquisition, a perfectly