"Vonda N. McIntyre-Fireflood" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

though she was slow, methodical, and nearly indestructible, she was an explorer. It was just that now she
had nowhere to explore.
She wondered if any of her friends had made it this far. She and six others had decided, in secret, to
flee. But they offered each other only moral support; each had gone out alone. Twenty more of her kind
still remained scattered in their reserve, waiting for assignments that would never come and pretending
they had not been abandoned.
Though it was not yet evening, the light faded around her and left the river bottom gray and black.
Dark slowly and cautiously lifted her eyes above the water. Her eyes peered darkly from beneath her
armor. They were deep blue, almost black, the only thing of beauty about her: the only thing of beauty
about her after or before her transformation from a creature who could pass for human to one who could
not. Even now she was not sorry to have volunteered for the change. It did not further isolate her; she
had always been alone. She had also been useless. In her new life, she had some worth.
The riverbed had cut between tall, thick trees that shut out much of the sunlight. Dark did not know for
certain if they would interfere with the radio signal as well. She had not been designed to work among
lush vegetation and she had never studied how her body might interact with it. But she did not believe it
would be safe for her to take a quiet stroll among the giant cedars. She tried to get her bearings, with sun
time and body memory. Her ability to detect magnetic fields was worthless here on Earth; that sense was
designed for more delicate signals. She closed it off as she might shut her eyes to a blinding light.
Dark submerged again and followed the river upward, keeping to its main branch. As she passed the
tributaries that ran and rushed to join the primary channel the river became no more than a stream itself,
and Dark was protected only by thin ripples.
She peered out again.
The pass across the ridge lay only a little ahead and above her, just beyond the spring that created the
river. To Dark's left lay a wide field of scree, where a cliff and hillside had collapsed. The river flowed
around the pile, having been displaced by tons of broken stone. The rubble stretched on quite a way, at
least as far as the pass and, if she were lucky, all the way through. It was ideal. Sinking barely
underwater, she moved across the current. Beneath her feet she felt the stones change from rounded and
water-worn to sharp and freshly broken. She reached the edge of the slope, where the shattered rock
projected into the river. On the downstream side she nudged away a few large stones, set herself, and
burrowed quickly into the shards.
The fractured crystalline matrix disrupted her echo perception. She kept expecting to meet a wall of
solid rock that would push her out and expose her, but the good conditions existed all the way through
the pass. Then, on the other side, when she chanced a peek out into the world, she found that the texture
of the ground changed abruptly on this side of the ridge. When the broken stone ended, she did not have
to seek out another river. She dug straight from the scree into the earth.
In the cool dry darkness, she traveled more slowly but more safely than in the river. Underground
there was no chance of the radio signal's escaping to give her away. She knew exactly where the surface
was all the time. It, unlike the interface of water and air, did not constantly change. Barring the collapse of
a hillside, little could unearth her. A landslide was possible, but her sonar could detect the faults and
weaknesses in earth and rock that might create a danger.
She wanted to rest, but she was anxious to reach the flyers' sanctuary as quickly as she could. She did
not have much farther to go. Every bit of distance might make a difference, for she would be safe only
after she got inside the boundaries... She could be safe there from normal people: what the flyers would
do when she arrived she could not say.
Dark's vision ranged much farther through the spectrum than it had when she was human. In daytime
she saw colors, but at night and underground she used infrared, which translated to distinguishable and
distinctive shades of black. They were supposed to look like colors, but she saw them all as black. They
told her what sort of land she was passing through and a great deal about what grew above.
Nevertheless, when the sun went down she broke through thick turf and peered around at the forest. The
moon had not yet risen, and a nearby stream was almost as dark as ice. The fir trees kept the same deep