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

exactly right.

He strode toward the flat, peered out again. Past the enclosure: past the abyss dug into this hollow by
Camp Paradox itself (that was MuffyтАЩs name for it, it would stay, it was the right term) was the
landscape. The shallow depressions, curved mountains, all of this curiously without color like the beasts
themselves; small puffs from hidden volcanoes and buttes, those commas and exclamation points of
nature. Later, much later, the strata would accumulate: these would be mines, the strata valleys and
mountains, over there perhaps downtown Helena. The volcanoes, attended to, the fix of attention,
gurgled like beasts, made little whickering sounds in the darkness, and the beasts hidden by the arc and
incline of the landscape gurgled like volcanoes. In and out, that shuddering identity.

Robles shook his head, not in awe, awe was not the proper term for any of this. On your sixth voyage
back, now much more than a guide (if less than a hunter), you either internalized some of this and put it
away or you perished through the implications of the circumstance, just let it carry you under. No, it was
the lack of anticipation, his strange indifference in this first dawn which was stunning; never had he felt this
way before, now the period had no effect upon him. He was rising to confront fire and the beast but he
might as well have been in Brooklyn Complex, working out some kind of appropriations plan. That was
how much it meant to him now. Even burrowing within Muffy had had that blandnessтАФher deeps which
once had seemed magnificent, arching now gave him back only small and splintering visions of himself,
little feathered mysteries in the dark. Here in what would become Helena sometime, the mines were yet
to be cast from this crystal unrest, the strata and volcanic ash lay millennia in the future as did his own
unspeakable conception. To this place, which should have been sacredтАФRobles felt that this was the
only sanctity which could be grasped, all the rest of it was ritualтАФhad come the crowd of travelers with
Dix, host and moderator at their front, to sight the huge beasts for the promised international, televised,
major-league kill. What fearful symmetry, Robles said. Who would have dreamt that? Hand or eye? Are
you up yet?

Amphibian noises from the pallet, water and earth. She flipped a cover at him. IтАЩm up, she said, thanks.
What are you talking about?

Poetry, Robles said. Old poetry.

You mean unwritten poetry, Muffy said. WonтАЩt be written for ages.

Camp Paradox, Robles said. Camp out of time.

You said it, she said. I didnтАЩt. Why donтАЩt you come here and lay with me? Create some more paradox.

He looked at her, the shadows dressing her nakedness, casting arrows and curvatures of shape. Better
not, he said, everyone will be up soon. What if they saw us locked to ground, playing the old
sniffle-snaffle? What then, Muffy?

She yawned. Part of the tour, she said.

IтАЩm a guide, Robles said. YouтАЩre a counselor. Not professional, it wouldnтАЩt look right at all.

What do you think theyтАЩre doing? Any different than we?

Dix doesnтАЩt, Robles said. He doesnтАЩt do anything like that at all, ever. Remember? He said that once. A
violation of the temple of the holy spirit. HeтАЩs a fanatic too, not just a great group mind.