"RESNICK, Mike - The Land of Nod" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

"Why do you say that?" I asked, for no animal in our history
was ever more identified with a location than the mighty Ahmed
with Marsabit.
"Do you not read the papers, or watch the news on the holo?"
I shook my head. "What happens to black Europeans is of no
concern to me."
"The government has evacuated the town of Marsabit, which
sits next to the mountain. They have closed the Singing Wells, and
have ordered everyone to leave the area."
"Leave Marsabit? Why?"
"They have been burying nuclear waste at the base of the
mountain for many years," he said. "It was just revealed that some
of the containers broke open almost six years ago. The government
hid the fact from the people, and then failed to properly clean up
the leak."
"How could such a thing happen?" I asked, though of course I
knew the answer. After all, how does _anything_ happen in Kenya?
"Politics. Payoffs. Corruption."
"A third of Kenya is desert," I said. "Why did they not bury
it there, where no one lives or even thinks to travel, so when
this kind of disaster occurs, as it always does, no one is
harmed?"
He shrugged. "Politics. Payoffs. Corruption," he repeated.
"It is our way of life."
"Ah, well, it is nothing to me anyway," I said. "What happens
to a mountain 500 kilometers away does not interest me, any more
than I am interested in what happens to a world named after a
different mountain."
"It interests _me_," said Kamau. "Innocent people have been
exposed to radiation."
"If they live near Marsabit, they are Pokot and Rendille," I
pointed out. "What does that matter to the Kikuyu?"
"They are _people_, and my heart goes out to them," said Kamau.
"You are a good man," I said. "I knew that from the moment we
first met." I pulled some peanuts from the pouch that hung around
my neck, the same pouch in which I used to keep charms and magical
tokens. "I bought these for Ahmed this afternoon," I said. "May
I...?"
"Certainly," answered Kamau. "He has few enough pleasures.
Even a peanut will be appreciated. Just toss them at his feet."
"No," I said, walking forward. "Lower the barrier."
He lowered the force field until Ahmed was able to reach his
trunk out over the top. When I got close enough, the huge beast
gently took the peanuts from my hand.
"I am amazed!" said Kamau when I had rejoined him. "Even I
cannot approach Ahmed with impunity, yet you actually fed him by
hand, as if he were a family pet."
"We are each the last of our kind, living on borrowed time,"
I said. "He senses a kinship."
I remained a few more minutes, then went home to another