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

"How was your shift?" Kylis asked.
"Too much fresh meat."
 Kylis grinned. Jason was talking like a veteran, hardened and disdainful of new prisoners, the fresh
meat, who had not yet learned the ways of Screwtop.
"We only got a couple new people," she said. "You must have had almost the whole bunch."
"It would have been tolerable if three of them hadn't been assigned to the drilling rig."
"Did you lose any?"
"No. By some miracle."
"We were fresh once too. Gryf's the only one I ever saw who didn't start out doing really stupid
things."
"Was I really that fresh?"
She did not want to hurt his feelings or even tease him.
"I was, wasn't I?"
"Jason... I'm sorry, but you were the freshest I ever saw. I didn't think you had any chance at all. Only
Gryf did."
"I hardly remember anything about the first set, except how much time he spent helping me."
"I know," Kylis said. Jason had needed a great deal of help. Kylis had forgiven him for being the cause
of her first real taste of loneliness, but she could not quite forget it.
"Gods-- this last set," Jason said. "I didn't know how bad it was alone." Then he smiled. "I used to
think I was a solitary person." Where Kylis was contemptuous of her discovered weaknesses, Jason was
amused at and interested in his. "What did you do before Gryf came?"
"Before Gryf came, I didn't know how bad it was alone, either," she said rather roughly.
"You'd better get some sleep."
He smiled. "You're right. Good morning." He fell asleep instantly.
Relaxed, he looked tireder. His hair had grown long enough to tie back, but it had escaped from its
knot and curled in tangled, dirty tendrils around his face. Jason hated being dirty, but working with the
drill left little energy for extras, like bathing. He would never really adjust to Screwtop as Gryf and Kylis
had. His first day here, Gryf had kept him from being killed or crippled at least twice. Kylis had been
working on the same shift but a different crew, driving one of the bulldozers and clearing another section
of forest. The drill could not be set up among the giant ferns, because the ground itself would not stand
much stress. Beneath a layer of humus was clay, so wet that in response to pressure it turned semi-liquid,
almost like quicksand. The crews had to strip off the vegetation and the layers of clay and volcanic ash
until bedrock lay exposed. Kylis drove the 'dozer back and forth, cutting through ferns in a much wider
path than the power plants themselves would have required. She had to make room for the excavated
earth, which was piled well back from the Pit's edges. Even so the slopes sometimes collapsed in
mudslides.
At the end of the day of Jason's arrival, the siren went off and Kylis drove the 'dozer to the old end of
the Pit and into the recharging stall. Gryf was waiting for her, and a big fair man was with him, sitting
slumped on the ground with his head between his knees and his hands limp on the ground. Kylis hardly
noticed him. She took Gryf's hand, to walk with him back to the shelters, but he quietly stopped her and
helped the other man to his feet. The new prisoner's expression was blank with exhaustion; in the dawn
light he looked deathly pale. Hardly anyone on Redsun was as fair as he, even in the north. Kylis
supposed he was from off-world, but he did not have the shoulder tattoo that would have made her trust
him instantly. But Gryf was half-carrying the big clumsy man, so she supported him on the other side.
Together she and Gryf got him to their shelter. He neither ate nor drank nor even spoke, but collapsed on
the hard lumpy platform and fell asleep. Gryf watched him with a troubled expression.
"Who is that?" Kylis did not bother to hide the note of contempt in her voice.
Gryf told her the man's name, which was long and complicated and contained a lot of double vowels.
She never remembered it all, even now. "He says to call him Jason."
"Did you know him before?" She was willing to help Gryf save an old friend, though she did not quite