"China Mieville - The Scar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mieville China)

Where we lie together they beat us apart, and I wrap my arms around the spastic matter that twitches in
my midriff as they begin to herd us.

We wind through tarry passages and engine chambers and IтАЩm all cold to know what this is for. And IтАЩm
more eager, IтАЩm quicker than some of the old ones bent double coughing and spewing and afraid to
move.

And then thereтАЩs a swallowing up, IтАЩm eaten up by the cold gulped down by darkness and gods fuck me
blind we are outside.


Outside.

IтАЩm dumb with it. IтАЩm dumb with wonder.

It has been a long time.

We huddle together, each against the next man like troglodytes like myopic trow. TheyтАЩre cowed by it the
old ones, by the lack of walls and edges and the movement of the cold, by water and air.

I might cry gods help me. I might.

All black on black but still I can see hills and water and I can see clouds. I can see the prisons on all
sides bobbing a little like fishermenтАЩs floats. Jabber take us all I can see clouds.

Bugger me IтАЩm crooning like I soothe a baby. ThatтАЩs for me that coddling noise.

And then they push us on like livestock shuffling rattling chains, dripping farting muttering astonished,
across the deck crippled under the weight of bodies and fetters, to a swaying rope bridge. And they
hurry us along and over it, all our number, and each man pauses a moment in the middle of the low-
slung passage between vessels, their thoughts visible and bright like a chymical burst.

They consider leaping.

file:///G|/eMule/Incoming/Mieville,%20China%20-%20Scar(Htm)/miev_0345454898_oeb_c01_r1.html (9 of 10)14-7-2004 2:34:19
 The Scar




Into the water of the bay.

But the rope walls around the bridge are high and thereтАЩs barbed wire hemming us in and our poor
bodies are sore and weak and each man falters, and continues, and crosses the water to a new ship.

I pause like the others in my turn. Like them IтАЩm too afraid.


And then thereтАЩs a new deck underfoot, scrubbed iron smooth and clean, vibrating from engines, and
more corridors and clattering keys and after all another long unlit room where we collapse exhausted