"Gardner Dozois - A Special Kind of Morning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

the head. It was an emotional reaction, but very calm, very resigned, very
passive. It was a thing too big for questioning; it became a self-evident
fact. After D'kotta, there could be nothing else. Period. The war was over.
We were almost right. But not quite.

In another hour or so, a man from field HQ came up over the mountain
shoulder in a stolen vacform and landed in camp. The man switched off
the vac, jumped down, took two steps toward the parapet overlooking hell,
stopped. We saw his stomach muscles jump, tighten. He took a stumbling
half-step back, then stopped again. His hand went up to shield his throat,
dropped, hesitated, went back up. We said nothing. The HQ directing the
D'kotta campaign had been sensibly located behind the Blackfriars: they
had been shielded by the mountain chain and had seen nothing but glare
against the cloud cover. This was his first look at the city; at where the city
had been. I watched the muscles play in his back, saw his shoulders hunch
as if under an unraised fist. A good many of the Quaestor men involved in
planning the D'kotta operation committed suicide immediately after the
Realignment; a good many didn't. I don't know what category this one
belonged in.

The liaison man finally turned his head, dragged himself away. His
movements were jerky, and his face was an odd color, but he was under
control. He pulled Heynith, our team leader, aside. They talked for a half
hour. The liaison man showed Heynith a map, scribbled on a pad for
Heynith to see, gave Heynith some papers. Heynith nodded occasionally.
The liaison man said good-bye, half-ran to his vacform. The vac lifted with
an erratic surge, steadied, then disappeared in a long arc over the gnarled
backs of the Blackfriars. Heynith stood in the dirtswirl kicked up by the
backwash and watched impassively.

It got quiet again, but it was a little more apprehensive. Heynith came
over, studied us for a while, then told us to get ready to move out. We
stared at him. He repeated it in a quiet, firm voice; unendurably patient.
Hush for a second, then somebody groaned, somebody else cursed, and the
spell of D'kotta was partially broken, for the moment. We awoke enough to
ready our gear; there was even a little talking, though not much. Heynith
appeared at our head and led us out in a loose travel formation, diagonally
across the face of the slope, then up toward the shoulder. We reached the
notch we'd found earlier and started down the other side.

Everyone wanted to look back at D'kotta. No one did.

Somehow, it was still night.

We never talked much on the march, of course, but tonight the silence
was spooky: you could hear boots crunch on stone, the slight rasp of
breath, the muted jangle of knives occasionally bumping against thighs.
You could hear our fear; you could smell it, could see it.

We could touch it, we could taste it.