"Ian R. Macleod - New Light On The Drake Equation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

New Light On The Drake Equation

by Ian R MacLeod




As he did on the first Wednesday of every month, after first finishing off the bottle of wine he'd fallen
asleep with, then drinking three bleary fingers of absinthe, and with an extra slug for good measure, Tom
Kelly drove down into St. Hilaire to collect his mail and provisions. The little town was red-brown,
shimmering in the depths of the valley, flecked with olive trees, as he slewed the old Citro├лn around the
hairpins from his mountain. Up to the east, where the karst rose in a mighty crag, he could just make out
the flyers circling against the sheer white drop if he rubbed his eyes and squinted, and the glint of their
wings as they caught the morning thermals. But Tom felt like a flyer of sorts himself, now the absinthe was
fully in his bloodstream. He let the Citro├лn's piebald tires, the skid of the grit and the pull of the mountain,
take him endlessly downwards. Spinning around the bends blind and wrong-side with the old canvas roof
flapping, in and out of the shadows, scattering sheep in the sweet hot roar of the antique motor, Tom
Kelly drove down from his mountain towards the valley.

In the bureau de poste, Madame Brissac gave him a smile that seemed even more patronising than
usual.

"Any messages?" he croaked.

She blinked slowly. "One maybe two." Bluebottles circled the close air, which smelled of boiled sweets
and Gitanes and Madame Brissac. Tom swayed slightly in his boots. He wiped off some of the road grit
which had clung to the stubble on his face. He picked a stain from off his tee-shirt, and noticed as he did
so that a fresh age spot was developing on the back of his right hand. It would disappoint her, really, if he
took a language vial and started speaking fluent French after all these years-or even if he worked at it the
old way, using bookplates and audio samples, just as he'd always been promising himself. It would
deprive her of their small monthly battle.

"Then, ah, je voudrais тАж" He tried waving his arms.

"You would like to have?"

"Yes please. Oui. Ah-s'il vous pla├оt тАж"

Still the tepid pause, the droning bluebottles. Or Madame Brissac could acquire English, Tom thought,
although she was hardly likely to do it for his sake.

"You late." She said eventually.

"You mean-"

Then the door banged open in a crowded slab of shadows and noise and a cluster of flyers, back from
their early morning spin on the thermals, bustled up behind Tom with skinsuits squealing, the folded tips of
their wings bumping against the brown curls of sticky flypaper which the bluebottles had been
scrupulously avoiding. These young people, Tom decided as he glanced back at them, truly were like
bright alien insects in their gaudy skinsuits, their thin bodies garishly striped with the twisting logos of