"Gardner Dozois - Strangers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

invisible hand, revealing the million icy stars of Aei's night sky, dense and
blazing against velvet black. None of the moons had yet risen, and the
constellation of Winter Man was just thrusting its frosty, nebula-maned
head up over the close northern horizon. Old City loomed there, to the
north, on top of its three-hundred-foot-tall sheer obsidian cliff, silhouetted
against the blaze of Winter Man's upper body, with His head rearing
terribly above its tallest towers. Its lights shone silver and yellow and deep,
secret orange, glinting coldly from that cold stone place in the air. To
Farber, it was as if Old City was watching him; not necessarily with
disapproval, or even with interest, but just watching, staring down
inscrutably, as if to drive home again the fact that this was not Earth.
New City was friendlier, with its rounded ceramic homes, its tiles and
mosaics, its glazed earthenware and pottery walls. Its lights were soft
pastels, blinking and diffusing wetly through the languid mists. But still,
the underlying ambience was unsettling, and strange. They had been
walking through New CityтАФa small, nervously giddy group of humans, too
loud in the alien hushтАФfor an hour that had seemed like a year, and they
had seen no one, no natives, no living thing at all. Farber was just
beginning to wonder if the streets were always so empty, echoing and still,
and if so, how anyone could ever stand to go abroad in them, when they
sighted a group of Cian ahead, walking in the same direction they were.
And at the same moment, they heard the first faint and distant mutter of
the Al ├а ntene. They were near the eastern outskirts of New City now, and
the streets began to slant rapidly down toward the River
Aome. The natives ahead slowed downтАФthey had fetched up against
another group of Cian, and in front of that group was another, and
another, and Farber saw why New City was deserted. The whole
population of Aei was on the move, down to the banks of the River Aome
for the Al├аntene, and the Earthmen had just caught up with the tail of the
immense crowd.
Ahead, as far as the eye could reach, the streets were packed solid with
shuffling ranks of Cian. Most were walking, carrying children on their
shoulders, holding baskets of fruit, or strangely shaped garlands of flowers,
or various implements of polished wood and metal and obsidian whose
function the Earthmen were unable to divine. There were numerous other
objects, half-seen, that defied definition altogether. Some of the Cian were
riding in six-wheeled carts pulled by huge, brindled animals that looked
something like enormous boar hogs; their reins were hung with
star-shaped black flowers, and with tiny crystal chimes, so that when the
boars tossed their heads, the air was filled with tinkling melancholy music,
and their spiral tusks flashed white in starlight. A few CianтАФand Farber
blinked, startledтАФwere riding bareback on big, sinuous things like
many-legged snakes, or reptilian centipedes. The crowds seemed to make
the things skittish; occasionally they would moo, long and mournfully,
and, looking around at the assemblage, blink their sad, intelligent eyes.
The Cian themselvesтАФshort, slender humanoids, uncannily graceful of
movementтАФwere dressed mostly in dark colors, but in rich and fantastical
costumes, of the finest fabric and workmanship. Jewelry of silver and
amber and obsidian glinted here and there throughout the crowd, and the
entire slow-moving procession had about it a curious mood of somber