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

see how they would do it. In one day he had spent himself completely.
"No," Gryf said. "But I read his work. I never thought I'd get to meet him."
The undisguised awe in Gryf's voice hurt Kylis, not so much because she was jealous as because it
reminded her how limited her own skills were. The admiration in the faces of drunks and children in
spaceport bazaars, which Kylis had experienced, was nothing compared to Gryf's feeling for the
accomplishments of this man.
"Is he in here for writing a book?"
"No, thank gods-- they don't know who he is. They think he's a transient. He travels under his
personal name instead of his family name. They are making him work for his passage home."
"How long?"
"Six sets."
"Oh, Gryf."
"He must live and be released."
"If he's important, why hasn't anybody ransomed him?"
"His family doesn't know where he is. They would have to be contacted in secret. If the government
finds out who he is, they will never let him go. His books are smuggled in."
Kylis shook her head.
"He affected my life, Kylis. He helped me understand the idea of freedom. And personal responsibility.
The things you have known all your life from your own experience."
"You mean you wouldn't be here except for him."
"I never thought of it that way, but you are right."
"Look at him, Gryf. This place will grind him up."
Gryf stared somberly at Jason, who slept so heavily he hardly seemed to breathe. "He should not be
here. He's a person who should not be hurt."
"We should?"
"He's different."
Kylis did not say Jason would be hurt at Screwtop. Gryf knew that well enough.
Jason had been hurt, and he had changed. What Gryf had responded to in his work was a pure
idealism and innocence that could not exist in captivity. Kylis had been afraid Jason would fight the prison
by arming himself with its qualities; she was afraid of what that would do to Gryf. But Jason had survived
by growing more mature, by retaining his humor, not by becoming brutal. Kylis had never read a word he
had written, but the longer she knew him, the more she liked and admired him.
Now she left him sleeping among the ferns. She had slept as much as she wanted to for the moment.
She knew from experience that she had to time her sleeping carefully on the day off. In the timeless
environment of space, where she had spent most of her life, Kylis' natural circadian rhythm was about
twenty-three hours. A standard day of twenty-four did not bother her, but Redsun's twenty-seven hour
rotation made her uncomfortable. She could not afford to sleep too much or too little and return to work
exhausted and inattentive. At Screwtop inattention was worth punishment at best, and at worst, death.
She was no longer tired, but she was hungry for anything besides the tasteless prison rations. The
vegetation on Redsun, afflicted with a low mutation rate, had not evolved very far. The plants were not
yet complex enough to produce fruiting bodies. Some of the stalks and roots, though, were edible.
On Redsun, there were no flowers.
Kylis headed deeper into the shadows of the rain forest. Away from the clearings people had made,
the primitive plants reached great heights. Kylis wandered among them, her feet sinking into the soft moist
humus. Her footprints remained distinct. She turned and looked back. Only a few paces behind her,
seeping water had already formed small pools in the deeper marks of her bootheels.
She wished she and Gryf and Jason had been on the same shift. As it was, half of their precious free
time would be spent sleeping and readjusting their time schedules. When Gryf finally got off, they would
have less than one day together, even before he rested. Sometimes Kylis felt that the single free day in
every forty was more a punishment than if the prisoners had been forced to work their sentences straight