"02 - The Persistence of Vision by John Varley" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

But among the group, as in any group, were some misfits. They tended to be among the brightest, the top ten percent in the IQ scores. This was not a reliable rule. Some had unremarkable test scores and were still infected with the hunger to do something, to change things, to rock the boat. With a group of five thousand, there were certain to be a few geniuses, a few artists, a few dreamers, hell-raisers, individualists, movers and shapers: a few glorious maniacs.
There was one among them who might have been President but for the fact that she was blind, deaf, and a woman. She was smart, but not one of the geniuses. She was a dreamer, a creative force, an innovator. It was she who dreamed of freedom. But she was not a builder of fairy castles. Having dreamed it, she had to make it come true.

The wall was made of carefully fitted stone and was about five feet high. It was completely out of context with anything I had seen in New Mexico, though it was built of native rock. You just don't build that kind of wall out there. You use barbed wire if something needs fencing in; but many people

still made use of the free range and brands. Somehow it seemed transplanted from New England.
It was substantial enough that I felt it would be unwise to crawl over it. I had crossed many wire fences in my travels and had not gotten in trouble for it yet, though I had some: talks with some ranchers. Mostly they told me to keep moving, but didn't seem upset about it. This was different. h set out to walk around it. From the lay of the land, I couldn't=' tell how far it might reach, but I had time.
At the top of the next rise I saw that I didn't have far to go.. The wall made a right-angle turn just ahead. I looked over it~ and could see some buildings. They were mostly domes, the: ubiquitous structure thrown up by communes because of the' combination of ease of construction and durability., There: were sheep behind the wall, and a few cows. They grazed on grass so green I wanted to go over and roll in it. The wall enclosed a rectangle of green. Outside, where I stood, it was: all scrub and sage. These people had access to Rio Grande irrigation water.
I rounded the corner and followed the wall west again. `
I saw a man on horseback about the same time he spotted me. He was south of me, outside the wall, and he turned and rode in my direction.
He was a dark man with thick features, dressed in denim and boots with a gray battered stetson. Navaho, maybe. L
`

don't know much about Indians, but I'd heard they were out here.
"Hello," I said when he'd stopped. He was looking me over. "Am I on your land?"
"Tribal land," he said. "Yeah, you're on it."
"I didn't see any signs."
He shrugged.
"It's okay, bud. You don't look like you out to rustle cattle." He grinned at me. His teeth were large and stained with tobacco. "You be camping out tonight?"
"Yes. How much farther does the, uh, tribal land go? e' Maybe I'll be out of it before tonight?"
He shook his head gravely. "Nah. You won't be off it,_. tomorrow. 'S all right. You make a fire, you be careful, huh?" He grinned again and started to ride off.
"Hey, what is this place?" I gestured to the wall, and he pulled his horse up and turned around again. It raised a lot .' of dust.
"Why you asking?" He looked a little suspicious.
"I dunno. Just curious. It doesn't look like the other places I've been to. This wall..."
He scowled. "Damn wall." Then he shrugged. I thought that was all he was going to say. Then he went on.
"These people, we look out for 'em, you hear? Maybe we don't go for what they're doin'. But they got it rough, you know?" He looked at me, expecting something. I never did get the knack of talking to these laconic Westerners. I always felt that I was making my sentences too long. They use a shorthand of grunts and shrugs and omitted parts of speech, and I always felt like a dude when I talked to them.
"Do they welcome guests?" I asked. "I thought I might see if I could spend the night."
He shrugged again, and it was a whole different gesture.
"Maybe. They all deaf and blind, you know?" And that was all the conversation he could take for the day. He made a clucking sound and galloped away.
I continued down the wall until I came to a dirt road that wound up the arroyo and entered the wall. There was a wooden gate, but it stood open. I wondered why they took all the trouble with the wall only to leave the gate like that. Then I noticed a circle of narrow-gauge train tracks that came out of the gate, looped around outside it, and rejoined itself. There was a small siding that ran along the outer wall for a few yards.
I stood there a few moments. I don't know what entered into my decision. I think I was a little tired of sleeping out, and I was hungry for a home-cooked meal. The sun was getting closer to the horizon. The land to the west looked like more of the same. If the highway had been visible, I might have headed that way and hitched a ride. But I turned the other way and went through the gate.
I walked down the middle of the tracks. There was a wooden fence on each side of the road, built of horizontal planks, like a corral. Sheep grazed on one side of me. There was a Shetland sheepdog with them, and she raised her ears and followed me with her eyes as I passed, but did not come when I whistled.
It was about half a mile to the cluster of buildings ahead. There were four or five domes made of something translucent, like greenhouses, and several conventional square buildings. There were two windmills turning lazily in the breeze.

There were several banks of solar water heaters. These are flat constructions of glass and wood, held off the ground so: they can tilt to follow the sun. They were almost vertical; now, intercepting the oblique rays of sunset. There were a ` few trees, what might have been an orchard.
About halfway there I passed under a wooden footbridge. It arched over the road, giving access from the east pasture to the west pasture. I wondered, What was wrong with a simple gate?
Then I saw something coming down the road in my direction. It was traveling on the tracks and it was very quiet. I stopped and waited.
It was a sort of converted mining engine, the sort that
pulls loads of coal up from the bottom of shafts. It was=
battery-powered, and it had gotten quite close before I heard,
it. A small man was driving it. He was pulling a car behind -
him and singing as loud as he could with absolutely no
sense of pitch. _
He got closer and closer, moving about five miles per hour, one hand held out as if he was signaling a left turn.: Suddenly I realized what was happening, as he was bearing. down on me. He wasn't going to stop. He was counting fenceposts with his hand. I scrambled up the fence just in time. There wasn't more than six inches of clearance be~: tween the train and the fence on either side. His palm-' touched my leg as I squeezed close to the fence, and he-r stopped abruptly.
He leaped from the car and grabbed me and I thought I,
was in trouble. But he looked concerned, not angry, and felt'
me all over, trying to discover if I was hurt. I was embarrassed. -
Not from the examination; because I had been foolish. The=
Indian had said they were all deaf and blind but I guess I
hadn't quite believed him. -