"Barry Longyear - Enemy Mine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

between two large rocks, one of which had an overhang that we hoped would hold down the capsule
when one of those big soakers hit. Around the rocks and capsule, we laid a foundation of large stones
and filled in the cracks with smaller stones. ' By the time the wall was knee high, we discovered that
building with those smooth, round stones and no mortar wasn't going to work. After some
experimentation, we figured out how to break the stones to give us flat sides with which to work. It's
done by picking up one stone and slamming it down on top of another. We took turns, one slamming and
one building. The stone was almost a volcanic glass, and we also took turns extracting rock splinters
from each other. It took nine of those endless days and nights to complete the walls, during which waves
came close many times and once washed us ankle deep. For six of those nine days, it rained. ; The
capsule's survival equipment included a plastic blanket, and that became our roof. It sagged in at the
center, and the hole we put in it there allowed the water to run out, keeping us almost dry and giving us a
supply of fresh water. If a wave of any determination came along, we could kiss the roof goodbye; but
we both had confidence in the walls, which were almost two meters thick at the bottom and at least a
meter thick at the top.
After we finished/ we sat inside and admired our work for about an hour, until it dawned on us that we
had just worked ourselves out of jobs. "What now, Jerry?"
"Ess?"
"What do we do now?"
"Now wait, we." The Drac shrugged. "Else what, ne?"
I nodded. "Gavey." I got to my feet and walked to the passageway we had built. With no wood for a
door, where the walls would have met, we bent one out and extended it about three meters around the
other wall with the opening away from the prevailing winds. The never-ending winds were still at it, but
the rain had stopped. The shack wasn't much to look at, but looking at it stuck there in the center of that
deserted island made me feel good. As Shizumaat observed, "Intelligent life making its stand against the
universe." Or, at least, that's the sense I could make out of Jerry's hamburger of English. I shrugged and
picked up a sharp splinter of stone and made another mark in the large standing rock that served as my
log. Ten scratches in all, and under the seventh, a small x to indicate the big wave that just covered the
top of the island.
I threw down the splinter. "Damn, I hate this place!"
"Ess?" Jerry's head poked around the edge of the opening. "Who talking at, Davidge?"
I glared at the Drac, then waved my hand at it. "Nobody."
"Ess va 'nobody'?"
"Nobody. Nothing."
"Ne gavey, Davidge."
I poked at my chest with my finger. "Me! I'm talking to myself! You gavey that stuff, toadface!"

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Jerry shook its head. "Davidge, now I sleep. Talk not so much nobody, ne?" It disappeared back into the
opening.
"And so's your mother!" I turned and walked down the slope. Except, strictly speaking, toadface, you
don't have a mother-or father. "If you had your choice, who would you like to be trapped on a desert
island with?" I wondered if anyone ever picked a wet freezing corner of Hell shacked up with a
hermaphrodite.
Half of the way down the slope, I followed the path I had marked with rocks until I came to my tidal
pool that I had named "Rancho Sluggo." Around the pool were many of the water-worn rocks, and
underneath those rocks, below the pool's waterline, lived the fattest orange slugs either of us had ever
seen. I made the discovery during a break from house building and showed them to Jerry.
Jerry shrugged. "And so?"