"Marta Randall - Journey" - читать интересную книгу автора (Randall Marta)

broken, gaunt. Yet she remembered where they had come from, could guess at
what they had been through, and she forced herself to retreat from fear, to
remember their humanity despite their numbers, or colors, or scents. The rope
ladder shifted beneath her feet; she waited until it steadied, then continued
down.
She dropped the blankets into a corner where some few of the refugees
were already curled in the dense, sweet hay, and she nodded to them in
strained friendliness before hurrying along the edge of the crowd toward the
head of the food line. The voices melted into a continuous, painful cacophony
against which she had little defense. She hunched her shoulders, slipped
through standing and sitting groups, and stopped as she saw the front of the
line. Jes and Quilla ladled stew and offered bread, their heads down and their
eyes fastened on the work of their hands. They seemed to Mish rooted
automatons -- the luminous, enchanted creatures of the lofts transformed by
the pull and press of the mob. A fierce, protective tenderness rose in her,
and she pushed her way to them, her own uneasiness for the moment forgotten.
"Jes? Quilla?"
Jes looked up and tried to smile. His blue eyes were rimmed with
darkness and looked huge in his weary face.
"I don't think there's going to be enough," Quilla muttered without
glancing at her mother. "We're almost out of stew, and the bread's about
gone." She lifted her head, her face expressionless and damp.
"We'll manage," Mish said. "There aren't too many left in line. Where's
Laur?"
"She said the stench was too much for her, and their accents are
barbarous," Jes said. "She went back to the house."
"Damn," Mish said. This was no time for the fierce old woman to haul
out her genteel upbringing and delicate sensibilities, but there was no help
for it. Mish scanned the barn, looking for her youngest child. "We'll set up
showers tomorrow; she really shouldn't have left. Where's Hart?"
"Probably home with Laur," Jes said. Mish put her arm around him as he
swayed.
"You go on home, Jessie. I'll take care of this."
Jes looked at her with gratitude and ran, not through the crowd to the
nearest door, but into the darkness of the unused portion of the barn. Mish
watched him, wishing that she, too, were taking the long, quiet way home.
Quilla continued to ladle stew, her face once again turned away from the
people. Quilla had been two when Jason and Mish left Terra. Jes and Hart were
born on Aerie, and had never seen humans other than the family and Laur;
Quilla probably could not remember the crowds of her birth-world.
And I forgot to worry about that, Mish thought. No help for this,
either. She touched her daughter's cheek, in love and apology.
"Can you last it out a bit more?"
"I guess so. I'm tired."
"I know. I'll take care of this. Can you go up to the storage loft and
see if there are any more blankets, anything we can use down here?"
Quilla managed a smile. "Sure. The third loft? Is anyone up there?"
"No. Bring the stuff down by the door. People should be able to find it
there."
Quilla gave her mother the ladle and slipped away, going as her brother