"Gilman, Carolyn Ives - Honeycrafters, The2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilman Carolyn Ives)

Dubich already regretted having lashed out; it only gave her the excuse to lie. He breathed in and tried to draw on the reserves of patience he had used raising children. Though no child had ever given them the trouble Yannas had.
"You have to give it up, Yannas. If not for yourself, do it for the rest of us. You're the greatest hivekeeper this motherhold has ever had. You may be the greatest one living. And Magwin has made a foolish bargain trusting her life to you."
He told Yannas about Renata then. Yannas watched immobile, her face as complex with shadows as her life was with falsehoods.
"She can't win this contest without your help," Dubich finished.
Yannas was silent a long time. She would not look at Dubich's face. "She was wrong to trust me," she said at last.
"She had reason to. She saved your life. She would never ask for your thanks, but you owe it to her."
"I suppose I do." Yannas' voice was soft, but thick with irony.
Dubich studied her face, searching for a glimmer of love or loyalty. Droning, monotonous music filled the silence--the voice of the fine swarm Yannas had created, first as apprentice, then as assistant, finally as master hivekeeper.
Dubich turned away, defeated. "How is the swarm?" he asked.
"They weathered the last journeypiece well," Yannas said. "One hive is raising a new mother. We will be able to start a new hive soon." Her voice warmed when she spoke of them, as it never did for any mere human. Not even a human who needed her gratitude. If only, Dubich thought desperately, she felt toward us as she feels toward the bees.
"We will have a new mother bee soon, one way or another," he said; the words ached. "You will have to choose sides. I hope you will choose Magwin's."
He waited for an answer, but Yannas said nothing, and he had to leave without knowing her choice.


When Yannas gave out word that the bees were ready to dehive, the whole camp began to stir. Spirits were high; it was the beginning of the human journeycycle as well as the bees'. Soon a procession of wicker litters was winding up the path to the hive tent. A crowd of workers helped shift the heavy hives onto litters, each bound for a preselected site on the plain around them. Yannas stood at the center of the hubbub, passing out directions. For a space around her everything was quiet, as if her presence stilled the chaos and vitality of the day.
She had marked the hive sites carefully in advance, and each pair of workers set off surely over the uneven ground with a sealed hive slung between them. Soon the hives would be scattered to the alpine meadows nestling in sheltered spots amidst the glacial washwater and scree. The nectar from these Dawn-flowers was too earthy for human tastes; but the bees needed it to strengthen them for their long pilgrimage east.
The hive tent was only half empty when Yannas called a halt; the rest of the hives were marked as Renata's. When the crowd had gone, Yannas slung a pack of tools over her shoulder, fastened a pouch of food to her belt, and set off to open the hives. She always did this part alone.
Up out of the river valley, the land was flat as far as the eye could see -- a vast, glacier-scoured plain. A cold wind swept down off the ice from the west, unimpeded by anything but a few solitary boulders. It was not the same place they had come to start the last journey. That place had passed on into morning. This was new land, released only recently from the grip of night. Over their lifetimes, the children in camp might see this spot mature, bear fruit, and pass on into searing day; but they would never live to see it reborn. That was left to their descendants.
Yannas