"Jay Lake - The Golden Whip" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

wondered why they hadn't killed me yet.

"We're going to have to ask you to leave."

That would probably be a good idea, I tried to say, but it came out in a slow slime of gravid bubbles.
Then there was a long march down a number of halls I'd never seen before, into corridors roped with
data conduit and oxygen feeds, past rusted fetters bolted to grimy walls festooned with thin-scratched
hashmarks, until they turned me out in a green clearing that stank of birdshit and rotten fruit.

"I..." That was one of those baby-words.

"Good bye, sir." The door shut into empty air and I was alone in the middle of a riot of life that would
have put Darwin to shame.

***

So there's a road out of anywhere, right? On an island you can build a raft. In the desert you can walk
each night into the rising moon, sleeping your days away beneath a blanket of sand. But in the
jungle...thickets of possibilities leading in great, vicious circles well-supplied with teeth.

I wondered as I walked each day, bereft of direction or intent but unwilling to rot in place, thinking about
Mother Company. Did She cry for me in Her chrome-steel brain racks? What about my people? I had
and did kill with a thought, spared and savaged entire tribes and nation-folk in the efficiencies of the
market. Now I was...a man alone.

My chest ached where the needle had gone in.

At night the crying of my people kept me awake.

Birds rising over the morning jungle in a screeching feathered tide were all the news that was fit for me.

One day I worked a length of vine free, using rocks from a riverbank that only cost me a few leeches to
fetch. I employed my handiwork to beat myself until my back bled. That felt better. Kind of like being at
work.

With the pain came the holy fire. My veins sang.

"Walk on," I told a green-eyed cat that stared like a pagan god. It had hair the color of fire.

"Walk off," it said, but I didn't believe it.

Maybe the holy fire was talking to me.

***

Three days later I saw the cat again. It lazed atop a cyclopean wall overrun with creepers and silver
beetles the size of my hand. I showed my bloody vine, but the cat was not impressed. I tried to explain
myself, but it would not listen.

"Go home to Mother," the cat said.