"George Alec Effinger - Marid 3 - The Exile Kiss" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

He gave me a capsule to help me sleep through the
night. I swallowed it with more of the water from the
goatskin. "May you arise in the morning in well-being, O
Shaykh," he said. j
"God bless you, O Wise One," I murmured. He left * the lamp burning on the sand floor beside me, and stood
up. He went out into the darkness, and I heard him drop the tent flap behind him. I still didn't know where I was, and I
didn't know a damn thing about the Bani Salim, but for some reason I felt perfectly safe. I fell asleep quickly and woke
up only once during the night, to see Noora sitting crosslegged against the black wall of the tent, asleep.
When I woke again in the morning, I could see more clearly. I raised my head a little and stared out through the
bright triangle. Now I could see a landscape of golden sand and, not far away, two hobbled camels. In the tent, Noora
still watched over me. She had awakened before me, and when she saw me move my head, she came closer. She still
self-consciously drew the edge of her head scarf across her face, which was a shame because she was very pretty.
"Thought we were friends," I said. I didn't have so much trouble talking this morning.
Her brows drew together and she shook her head. I wasn't having trouble talking, but I was still having trouble
being understood. I tried again, speaking more slowly and using both hands to amplify my words.
"We . . . are . . . friends," she said. Each word was strangely accented, but I could decipher the dialect if she
gave me a little time. "You . . . guest . . . of . . . Bani Salim."
Ah, the legendary hospitality of the Bedu! "Hassanein is your father?" I asked. She shook her head; I didn't know if
she was denying the relationship or if she just hadn't understood my question. I repeated it more slowly. "Shaykh . . .
Hassanein , . . father's . . . brother," she said.
After that, we both got used to speaking simply and putting space between our words. It wasn't long before we
weren't having any trouble following each other, even at normal conversational speed.
"Where are we?" I asked. I had to find where I was in relation to the city, and how far from the nearest outpost of
civilization.
Noora's brow wrinkled again as she considered her geography. She poked a forefinger into the sand in front of her.
"Here is Bir Balagh. The Bani Salim have camped here two weeks." She poked another hole in the sand, about three
inches from the first. "Here is Khaba well, three days south." She reached across the much greater distance between
us and made another hole with her fin-ger. "Here is Mughshin. Mughshin is hauta."
"What's hauta?" I asked.
"A holy place, Shaykh Marid. The Bani Salim will meet other tribes there, and sell their camel herd."
 Fine, I thought, we were all headed for Mughshin. I'd never heard of Mughshin, and I imagined it was probably
just a little patch of palm trees and a well, stuck in the middle of the awful desert. It most likely didn't have a suborbital
shuttle field nearby. I knew I was lost some-where in the kingdoms and unmarked tribal turfs of Ara-bia. "How far from
Riyadh?" I asked.
. "I don't know Riyadh," said Noora. Riyadh was the former capital of her country, when it had been united under
the House of Saud. It was still a great city.
"Mecca?"
"Makkah," she corrected me. She thought for a few seconds, then pointed confidently across my body.
"That way," I said. "Good. How far?" Noora only shrugged. I hadn't learned very much.
"I'm sorry," she said. "The old shaykh asked the same questions. Maybe Uncle Hassanein knows more."
The old shaykh! I'd been so wrapped up in my own misery that I'd forgotten about Papa. "The old shaykh is
alive?"
"Yes, thanks to you, and thanks to the wisdom of Un-cle Hassanein. When Hilal and bin Turki found the two of
you on the dunes, they thought you were both dead. They came back to our camp, and if they hadn't told Uncle
Hassanein about you later that evening, you surely would be dead."
I stared at her for a moment. "Hilal and bin Turki just left us out there?"
She shrugged. "They thought you were dead."
I shivered. "Glad it crossed their minds to mention us while they were sitting comfortably around the communal
fire."
Noora didn't catch my bitterness. "Uncle Hassanein brought you back to camp. This is his tent. The old shaykh is