"Goonan, Kathleen Ann - The Day The Dam Broke" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goonan Kathleen Ann)

her name. It seems that all the tourists decided to hurry home to die or go
insane and the locals just vanished.
The next morning our company of three left town. Mildred pulled a wagon heaped
with supplies, tools, and the log. At dawn, the air smelled of lake and the
pines were deep green, and their wind-stirred shadows danced on the damp dirt
road. I heard small creatures rustle away over dry needles as we passed.
We took the road north out of town--see, I am not stingy about clues--and moved
along toward home, what has come to be home, as if this unlikely target was
somehow imprinted in me and called me through deep forest and over outrageously
high mountain passes--hurry, hurry please! Sunsets are peach and gold, the sky
behind sometimes brilliant green as Venus catches fire from the sun. There. The
stove is hot now, I am satisfied, for the moment. I ice fish in winter, on Lake
Passo, pike. I am well set up and here we can live quite well. I do.
I should warn you, however, I am well-armed and have sent a few yous packing,
unfortunately . . . but they were not the True You, and I never killed any of
them (except one) only sufficient ly frightened them. Believe me, You. Never.
Not a one. Well, only that one, who was very far from being a true you. I have a
weapon which does not kill. Unless . . .
Ah, you are thinking . . . never mind. Trust me please. Yes.
Dear. You. As usual, as always, there is an Ancient Cul ture and how we long for
it. We can't quite believe it gone, we try and linger in it, touch its dying
fire. Ours was not as ancient nor as long as Chinese Dynasties; ours was a mere
blip. But in intensity, in the flashing light of what-humans-can-know and really
what else is there? we were glorious. I was and now you are packed tight with
information, with true inforam, and therefore believe me believe me, You. My
ancestors were peasants in Ireland and on the vast forested Indianed plains of
Ohio, and our DNA is sharp, so believe me, You; I spring from the land. There is
intensity here. So do make the attempt. I love you and I truly know what love
is. It is not always just for people, you know. Sometimes it is just for Life.
Here it is.
#
I was terrified and exhilarated the instant my train car slipped from L.A.
through the dome membrane. A missionary for medicine, out into the fray, heading
out from we who were so civilized, with our G.E., our Happiness, our pollen-held
informa tion and pheromonal receptors with which to perfectly and preci sely
transmit information. Sometimes the receptors are terribly hungry out here.
After all they could absorb most information much more precisely, and more
quickly, than any other method. Still I don't consider returning, though
something must remain of the domes. I think.
I was leaving L.A. to minister to the primitive folks we had left behind on our
conversion to Flower-Cities. How magnanimous of me! I'd caught hints that they
didn't want help, but ignored them like any good missionary. Outside the domes
nanplagues long outlawed, remnants of the Information Wars, drifted about in
clouds, sluiced down occasionally in rainfall. The plagues twisted unpredictably
those who refused to come in from the rain and gather in the Flower-Cities,
those who refused our admittedly limited inoculations to try and keep them
half-safe, to protect the germ line just a bit. What fell was a real rain of
stories as it were. Einstein could flower within you, Fermat's Last Theorem
could unfold in breathtaking clarity, hurtling you straight down a swirling
tunnel into the eye of the hurricane of Reality but without support you would,