"Barry N. Malzberg - Major League Triceratops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

myselftoo . Gather myself in this prehistoric plunge towardтАФtoward what? Reconception and
redevelopment to be sure and all the revisions of time. In latter years theTriceratops shot by Dix will
decompose along with all this era, the living too, steam slowly into the mists. None of it will remain but
that small testimony I can leave or that at least I think is the insistence which drives me forward, drives
me back, takes me through this busy and circumstantial time.

Dix, poised on the rim of the impossible, leveling the stick of fire and the great beast, confused, stumbling
in the chalk and doom.

MORNING LIGHT
The notes lacked away, his schedule set, insistent sleep craved, Robles stumbled toward awareness
quickly, rising through the flickering levels of illumination, reaching toward the weight of sixty-seven
million crushing years and found himself lying tangled on the earth, the ropes of the tent a geometry of
madness spattering shadows. Cry of prehistoric birds in the distance, the strange, dry whooping of a
beast, then. He reared to a seated position, arched away from the sleeping Muffy, fully clothed yes as he
had prepared but with the feeling that he had nonetheless fallen helplessly behind, lost all grip and sense
of what he had come to do, knew only the falling sickness. But peering through the tent he could see that
the little camp was silent, the other tents undisturbed, DixтАЩs tent falling in even folds, this dense time still
wrapped heavily around the sleepers. His terror must have come from dreams, not circumstance, some
atavism of displacement, of having been taken by time to this utter and dismaying disconnection.

Back in the tent he struggled to move from dreams of wounded reptiles and death then, suppressed the
dream sounds of carnage to come, breathed slowly in the clammy silence, his breath curling before him.
Muffy sighed, a pretty woman, a pretty distracted woman, no courtesan but a friend, a part of the tour,
yes, but more than that to him now, she insisted, and he looked at her momentarily without desire,
without any intimation of need, remembering the places his hands had found in that scurrying time earlier
when he had been driven from a need he could no more articulate than he could decipher those dim
whoops. Let her sleep, yes, he thought, there was enough and a different aspect of time to come.

Standing there, back to the embankment, he could see the reflection of the floodlights spilling through the
protected zone, framing the sleeping Muffy Carter, he could see the Cretaceous refracted as panorama,
diorama, hurtled dogwood and the swamp having the aspect of the museum. It was a тАЬnatural habitat,тАЭ
Robles thought, and put the quote marks in, the biggest and goddamndest habitat of then all, a
Cretaceous replicate and just the most remarkable thing. Scratching his ass in the curling sunlight, trying
to bring himself to some kind of accommodation, Robles peered at his strange and attractive partner,
then turned to see the mesh fences in the distance, the fences walling off the compound, holding it through
paradoxical electrification and wire from the gigantic animals that would otherwise in their ignorance
blunder through. Protect the animals, protect the travelers, a mutuality of indifference. That was the point
of the tour, wasnтАЩt it? But they had promised Dix one kill. A major-leagueTriceratops . That was where
the center lay now.

He didnтАЩt want to think about it. KillingTriceratops was not RoblesтАЩ ticket, he would direct the fire,
whisper words of encouragement to Dix, estimate the windage and the burn ratio and the number of
meters toward the beast but the kill was all DixтАЩs responsibility, the Combine had made that quite clear, a
line had been drawn (just like that for the dinosaurs) and Robles would not have to cross it. IтАЩm here
safe, he said, you hear that Muffy? Muffy sighed, clutched a pink pillow in her pretty hands, rubbed her
face in the crease, then gave a long, purling groan. I know you donтАЩt want to talk about it, he said. No
one wants to talk about it. We all have our jobs, weтАЩre all safe, arenтАЩt we? Dix is the major-league
Triceratops hunter while you and I make sweet, sweet love under the dogwoods, isnтАЩt that right? He
listened, heard the catch in her breath, the tiny acquiescence in her exhalation. Right, he said, that is