"Tom Easton - Unto the Last Generation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

Some of the stones, the oldest, most weathered, most illegible, were simply that: stones, thin slabs and
obelisks and Victories of granite and limestone and marble. Green scales and furs adorned their
shadowed north sides; where such growths faced the sun, they had turned long ago to withered,
blackened ash.

Many more, chunks like upright steamer trunks, reflected fire from their tops in checkered patterns
broken by bird droppings and debris. Their sides were nearly free of moss and lichen. Here and there
among the brambles were smaller stones surrounded by piles of rubble in which the setting sun highlighted
threads of metal, some as bright gold or silver as the day it had first been smelted, some red or green with
time and oxidation.

The vegetation was sparse. It should have rolled in riotous waves over the abandoned ground, but the
soil had been leached and eroded by decades of acid rain, baked by solar ultraviolet, poisoned by
pollutants and pesticides. It was perhaps a wonder that it supported any life at all.

"Is this all there is? Somehow I expected more of an after _life_, you know? I paid a lot to be
mindloaded, and...."

At the base of one of the piles was a hole, a burrow. Something moved within it.

There was a soft hissing sound, like air escaping from a tire or like a cat that had just spotted some
strange beast.

A growl shaped itself into: "Wanta chase."

"How about a bone?"

"Yes!"

"Oh, do be quiet, dear." This voice sounded maturely feminine. "You'll just get the poor thing all worked
up."

"So what else is there to do around here?"

A large cockroach emerged from under a rock and paused watchfully, its antennae testing the air. A
ground squirrel darted from the burrow, seized the roach, and bit off its head. Then it sat up on its
haunches, surveyed the cemetery, and ate the rest. It did not seem disturbed by the chatter that
surrounded it.

"Wanta chase!"

"Be nice to meet a little meat."

"My grandson."

"Great-grandson."

"Whatever. It's been long enough. He's due again."

"Lucky bastard."