"Gardner Dozois - Chains of the Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

After this, USADCOM became very thoughtful.
****
Tommy Nolan was already a half hour late to school, but he wasn't hurrying. He
dawdled along the secondary road that led up the hill behind the old sawmill,
and watched smoke go up in thick black lines from the chimneys of the houses
below, straight and unwavering in the bright, clear morning, like brushstrokes
against the sky. The roofs were made of cold gray and red tiles that winked
sunlight at him all the way to the docks, where clouds of sea gulls bobbed and
wheeled, dipped and rose, their cries coming faint and shrill to him across
the miles of chimneys and roofs and aerials and wind-tossed treetops. There
was a crescent sliver of ocean visible beyond the dock, like a slitted blue
eye peering up over the edge of the world. Tommy kicked a rock, kicked it
again, and then found a tin can which he kicked instead, clattering it along
ahead of him. The wind snatched at the fur on his parka, _puff_, momentarily
making the cries of the sea gulls very loud and distinct, and then carrying
them away again, back over the roofs to the sea. He kicked the tin can over
the edge of a bluff, and listened to it somersault invisibly away through the
undergrowth. He was whistling tunelessly, and he had taken his gloves off and
stuffed them in his parka pocket, although his mother had told him
specifically not to, it was so cold for November. Tommy wondered briefly what
the can must feel like, tumbling down through the thick ferns and weeds,
finding a safe place to lodge under the dark, secret roots of the trees. He
kept walking, _skuff-skuff_ing gravel very loudly. When he was halfway up the
slope, the buzz saw started up at the mill on the other side of the bluff. It
moaned and shrilled metallically, whining up through the stillness of the




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morning to a piercing shriek that hurt his teeth, then sinking low, low, to a
buzzing, grumbling roar, like an angry giant muttering in the back of his
throat. An _animal_, Tommy thought, although he knew it was a saw. _Maybe it's
a dinosaur._ He shivered deliciously. A _dinosaur_!
Tommy was being a puddle jumper this morning. That was why he was so
late. There had been a light rain the night before, scattering puddles along
the road, and Tommy had carefully jumped over every one between here and the
house. It took a long time to do it right, but Tommy was being very
conscientious. He imagined himself as a machine, a vehicle -- a puddle jumper.
No matter that he had legs instead of wheels, and arms and a head, that was
just the kind of ship he was, with he himself sitting somewhere inside and
driving the contraption, looking out through the eyes, working the pedals and
gears and switches that made the ship go. He would drive himself up to a
puddle, maneuver very carefully until he was in exactly the right position,
backing and cutting his wheels and nosing in again, and then put the ship into
jumping gear, stomp down on the accelerator, and let go of the brake switch.
And away he'd go, like a stone from a catapult, _up_, the puddle flashing
underneath, then _down_, with gravel jarring hard against his feet as the
earth slapped up to meet him. Usually he cleared the puddle. He'd only
splashed down in water once this morning, and he'd jumped puddles almost two