"Paul McAuley - Recording Angel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Recording Angel - a novelette by Paul J McAuley



Recording Angel
a novelette
IP fiction
by Paul J McAuley




Mr Naryan, the Archivist of Sensch, still keeps to his habits as much as possible, despite all that has
happened since Angel arrived in the city. He has clung to these personal rituals for a very long time
now, and it is not easy to let them go. And so, on the day that Angel's ship is due to arrive and attempt
to reclaim her, the day that will end in revolution, or so Angel has promised her followers, as ever, at
dusk, as the Rim Mountains of Confluence tip above the disc of its star and the Eye of the Preservers
rises above the far side of the world, Mr Naryan walks across the long plaza at the edge of the city
towards the Great River.

Rippling patterns swirl out from his feet, silver and gold racing away through the plaza's living marble.
Above his head, clouds of little machines spin through the twilight: information's dense weave. At the
margin of the plaza, broad steps shelve into the river's brown slop. Naked children scamper through
the shallows, turning to watch as Mr Naryan, old and fat and leaning on his stick at every other stride,
limps past and descends the submerged stair until only his hairless head is above water. He draws a
breath and ducks completely under. His nostrils pinch shut. Membranes slide across his eyes. As
always, the bass roar of the river's fall over the edge of the world stirs his heart. He surfaces, spouting
water, and the children hoot. He ducks under again and comes up quickly, and the children scamper
back from his spray, breathless with delight. Mr Naryan laughs with them and walks back up the steps,
his loose belted shirt shedding water and quickly drying in the parched dusk air.

Further on, a funeral party is launching little clay lamps into the river's swift currents. The men, waist-
deep in brown water, turn as Mr Naryan limps past, knuckling their broad, narrow foreheads. Their
wet skins gleam with the fire of the sunset that is now gathering in on itself across leagues of water.
Mr Naryan genuflects in acknowledgement, feeling an icy shame. The woman died before he could
hear her story; her, and seven others in the last few days. It is a bitter failure.

Angel, and all that she has told him -- Mr Naryan wonders whether he will be able to hear out the end
of her story. She has promised to set the city aflame and, unlike Dreen, Mr Naryan believes that she
can.

A mendicant is sitting cross-legged on the edge of the steps down to the river. An old man, sky-clad
and straight-backed. He seems to be staring into the sunset, in the waking trance that is the nearest that
the Shaped citizens of Sensch ever come to sleep. Tears brim in his wide eyes and pulse down his
leathery cheeks; a small silver moth has settled at the corner of his left eye to sip salt.


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Recording Angel - a novelette by Paul J McAuley