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

I made a second step, then a third. Each was easier than the one before, although the pain was terrible. I
hobbled towards the shallow stairs by the stage, took the top one, then another, nearly overbalanced,
took the third and fourth.

They saw me as I reached the door beneath the old stage. I scarcely dared to look back, but I saw them
abandoning the man who had fallen across the pigments and hoist their batons to the strike position. With
athletic strength they were moving quickly across the short distance towards me. I dived through the
door, dragging my hurt leg.

Breath rasped in my throat. I made a sobbing sound. There was one door, a passage, a chamber and
another door. I passed through all of them. Behind me the black-caps were shouting, ordering me to halt.
Someone blundered against one of the thin partition walls. I heard the wood creaking as he thudded
against it.

I hurried on. The curving passage where I stored some of my smaller paintings was next, then a series of
three small cubicles, all with doors wide open. I had placed one of my paintings inside each of these
cubicles, standing guard within.
I passed along the corridor, slamming closed the doors at each end. My leg was working almost normally
again, but the pain continued. I was in another corridor with an alcove at the end, where I had stood a
painting. I doubled back, pushed the door of one of the larger chambers and propped open the
spring-loaded door with the edge of one of my boards. I passed through. Another corridor was beyond,
wider than the others. Here were a dozen of my paintings, stacked against the wall. I hooked my good
foot beneath them, causing them to clatter down at an angle and partly block the way. I passed them.
The men were yelling at me again, threatening me, ordering me to stop.

I heard a crash behind me, and another. One of the men shouted a curse.

I went through into the next short corridor, where four more chambers opened out. Some of my most
intense paintings were hidden in each of these. I pulled them so that they extended into the corridor at
knee height. I balanced a tall one against them, so that any disturbance of it would make it fall.

There was another crash, followed by shouting. The voices now were only a short distance away from
me, on the other side of the decrepit dividing wall. There was a heavy sound, as if someone had fallen.
Then I heard swearingтАФa man screamed. One of his companions began shouting. The thin wall bulged
towards me as he fell against it. I heard paintings fall around them, heard the crackle of sudden fire as
synaptic batons made contact with the pigments.

I smelt smoke.

I was regaining my strength, although the naked fear of being caught by the black-caps still had a grip on
me. I came into another corridor, one that was wider and better lit than the others and not enclosed by
walls that reached to the ceiling. Smoke drifted here.

I halted at the end, trying to control my breath. The warren of corridors behind me was silent. I went out
of the corridor into the large sub-floor area beyond. The silence followed and wisps of smoke swirled
around me. I stood and listened, tense and frightened, paralysed by the terror of what would happen if
even one of the men had managed to push past the paintings without touching any of them.

The silence remained. Sound, thought, movement, life, absorbed by the paintings of trauma and loss.