"Barry Longyear - The Last Enemy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

THE LAST ENEMY [086-066-5.0]

by: Barry B. Longyear

Synopsis:

No synopsis available

Barry B. Longyear
PO Box 100,
New Sharon, Maine 04955
Tele. (207) 778-6739

For Jude, Jannettja, Tony, and Sophie;
Fay, Mike, and Jeremy,
And Jean.

Battles won, victories in progress.

A tribe is no more
Than a thought
Chaining the thinker
To eternal war with those
Fettered to thoughts
Of a different sort.

Hissied-do'timan, Meditations on Blood

CHAPTER 1

Miati Ki hides in the rubble above us at the lip of the dry strea
m
bed. I see only its right boot and the top of its energy pack. The sun
is hot and the heat radiating from the desert sand and boulders flails
my face and steals my breath. Only the dense humidity remembers that
this was once a jungle. There are no birds, no flowers, no trees.
Everything beautiful and gentle that once flew or grew here left this
part of the Shorda countless lives ago. Still, the stinging greenflies
have survived. They will outlive us all. Pina is eating the last of its
share of the rations we captured. As it took its share of the rations,
Pina made a joke, holding it to its lips. "This is the fruit of the
Irrveden, for which the Mavedah fought, that we eat at the second
repast." I laughed with the others at the words of the repast ceremony,
from times when there were formal repasts, tables, and food. Back
before any of us were born. When I was very young, before my parent's
death, Yazi Avo would recite the ceremony at meals, when there were
meals. I laughed, but Pina's joke made me want to cry. I hold to my ear
the little receiver I keep in my pocket. Its screen is broken, but it
still produces audio. The Mavedah station at Mijii Heights still sends,
which means the eastern flank of the Front's invasion of the Shorda is