"Christopher Priest - The Discharge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

to reach solid land.

We headed north, shaking the salt water from our eyes. The litany of island names ran on ceaselessly in
my mind, urging me to return.



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I escaped from the launch at the earliest opportunity, which was when we reached the first inhabited
island. No one seemed to know which one it was. I went ashore in my rakish clothes, feeling shabby and
dishevelled in spite of their stylish fit. The constant soakings in the boat had bleached most of the color
from the material, had stretched and shrunk the different kinds of the fabric. I had no money, no name, no
past, no future.

"What is this island called?" I said to the first person I met, an elderly woman sweeping up refuse on the
quayside. She looked at me as if I was mad.

"Steffer," she said.

I had never heard of it.

"Say the name again," I said.

"Steffer, Steffer. You a discharger?" I said nothing, so she grinned as if I had confirmed the information.
"Steffer!"

"Is that what you think I am, or is that the name of this island?"

"Steffer!" she said again, turning away from me.

I muttered some thanks and stumbled away from her, into the town. I still had no idea where I was.

I slept rough for a while, stealing food, begging for money, then met a whore who told me there was a
hostel for the homeless which helped people to find jobs. Within a day I too was sweeping up refuse in
the streets. It turned out that the island was called Keeilen, a place where many steffers made their first
landfall.

Winter cameтАФI had not realized it was the autumn when I discharged myself. I managed to work my
passage as a deckhand on a cargo ship sailing with supplies to the southern continent, but which, I heard,
would be calling at some more northerly islands on the way. My information was true. I arrived on
Fellenstel, a large island with a range of mountains that sheltered the inhabited northern side from the
prevailing southern gales. I passed the winter in the mild airs of Fellenstel. I moved north again when
spring came, stopping for different periods of time on Manlayl, Meequa, Emmeret, SentierтАФnone of
these was in my litany, but I intoned them just the same.
Gradually, my life was improving. Rather than sleep rough wherever I went I was usually able to rent a
room for as long as I intended to stay on each island. I had learned that the whorehouses on the islands
were a chain of contacts for dischargers, a place of resort, of help. I discovered how to find temporary