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

sun-streaked hair from his damp forehead, and slipped outside. A couple of hours of Gryf's work shift
remained, so Kylis headed toward the guards' enclosure and the hovercraft dock.
Beyond the drill-pit clearing, the forest extended for a short distance westward. The ground continued
to fall, growing wetter and wetter, changing perceptibly into marsh. The enclosure, a hemispherical
electrified fence completely covering the guards' residence domes, was built at the juncture of relatively
solid land and shallow, standing water. It protected the hovercraft ramp, and it was invulnerable. She had
tried to get through it. She had even tried to dig beneath it. Digging under a fence or cutting through one
was something no spaceport rat would do, short of desperation. After her first few days at Screwtop,
Kylis had been desperate. She had not believed she could survive her sentence in the prison. So, late that
night, she crept over to the electrified fence and began to dig. At dawn she had not reached the bottom
of the fence supports, and the ground was wet enough to start carrying electricity to her in small warning
tingles.
Her shift would begin soon; guards would be coming in and going out, and she would be caught if she
did not stop. She planned to cover over the hole she had dug and hope it was not discovered.
She was lying flat on the ground, digging a narrow deep hole with a flat rock and both hands, smeared
all over with the red clay, her fingernails ripped past the quick. She reached down for one last handful of
dirt, and grabbed a trap wire.
he current swept through her, contracting every muscle in her body. It lasted only an instant. She lay
quivering, almost insensible, conscious enough to be glad the wire had been set to stun, not kill. She tried
to get up and run, but she could not move properly. She began to shudder again. Her muscles were
overstimulated, incapable of distinguishing a real signal. She ached all over, so badly that she could not
even guess if the sudden clench of muscles had broken any bones.
A light shone toward her. She heard footsteps as the guard approached to investigate the alarm the
trap wire had set off. The sound thundered through her ears, as though the electric current had heightened
all her senses, toward pain. The footsteps stopped; the light beam blinded her, then left her face. Her
dazzled vision blurred the figure standing over her, but she knew it was the Lizard. It occurred to her, in a
vague, slow-motion thought, that she did not know his real name. (She learned later that no one else did
either.) He dragged Kylis to her feet and held her upright, glaring at her, his face taut with anger and his
eyes narrow.
"Now you know we're not as easy to cheat as starship owners," he said. His voice was low and raspy,
softly hoarse. He let her go and she collapsed again. "You're on probation. Don't make any more
mistakes. And don't be late for duty."
The other guards followed him away. They did not even bother to fill in the hole she had dug.
Kylis had staggered through that workday; she survived it, and the next, and the next, until she knew
that the work itself would not kill her. She did not try to dig beneath the fence again, but she still watched
the hovercraft when it arrived.
By the time she reached her place of concealment on the bank above the fence, the hovercraft had
already climbed the ramp and settled. The gate was locked behind it. Kylis watched the new prisoners
being unloaded. The cargo bay door swung Open. The people staggered out on deck and down the
gangway, disoriented by the long journey in heat and darkness. One of the prisoners stumbled and fell to
his knees, retching.
Kylis remembered how she had felt after so many hours in the pitch-dark hold. Even talking was
impossible, for the engines were on the other side of the hold's interior bulkhead and the fans were
immediately below. She was too keyed up to go into a trance, and a trance would be dangerous while
she was crowded in with so many people.
The noise was what Kylis remembered most about coming to Screwtop-- incessant, penetrating noise,
the high whine of the engines and the roar of the fans. She had been half deaf for days afterward. The
compartment was small. Despite the heat the prisoners could not avoid sitting and leaning against each
other, and as soon as the engines started the temperature began to rise. By the time the hovercraft
reached the prison, the hold was thick with the stench of human misery. Kylis hardly noticed when the