"Richard A. Lupoff - Sail the Tide of Mourning" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lupoff Richard A)

"And your own?" she responded.

"My own pigmentтАФyes, I too would have had many more years to play
at sky hero. But I killed Ham Tamdje. I broke the sacred trust. I could sail
the great membrane ships no longer."

He dropped her hand and walked a few paces away. He stood, his back
half-turned to her, and his words were carried to her by the tiny radios
implanted in both their skulls.

"And Miralaidj," he almost whispered, "MiralaidjтАФin the Dreamtime.
And her father Wuluwaid in the Dreamtime. No."

He turned and looked upward through naked spars to the glowing stars
of Yirrkalla and the Rainbow Serpent. "We should set to work rigging
sails," he said.

"I will stay with you then," she said. "You will not send me away, send
me back."

"Dua knew you were hidden?"

She nodded yes.

"My closest friend, my half, kunapi to my aranda. Dua told me a lie."
 "I begged him, Jiritzu."

For a moment he almost glared at her, anger filling his face. "Why do
you wish to die?"

She shook her head. "I wish to be with you."

"You will die with me."

"I will return to the Dreamtime with you."

"You believe the old stories."

She shrugged. "We should set to work rigging sails." And scurried
away, flung open lockers, drew out furled sheets of nearly monomolecular
membrane, scampered up a mast and began fixing the sail to spars.

Jiritzu stood on the deck, watching. Then he crossed to another of the
lighter's three equilateral decks and followed the example of Bidjiwara.

He worked until he had completed the rigging of the masts of the deck,
then crossed again, to the third of the lighter's decks, opened a locker,
drew membrane and clambered to the top of a mast. There he clung,
knees gripping the vertical shaft, arms flung over the topmost spar,
rigging the sail.