"Alastair Reynolds - Minla's Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

Merlin kept his distance, conserving fuel as best he could as the airship
crossed tens of kilometers of arid, gently sloping land. Occasionally they overflew a
little hamlet of huts or the scratch of a minor track. Presently the ground became
soil-covered, and then fertile. They traversed swaths of bleak gray-green grass,
intermingled with boulders and assorted uplifted debris. Then there were trees and
woods. The communities became more than just hamlets. Small ponds fed rivers
that ambled down to the single lake that occupied the landmassтАЩs lowest point.
Merlin spied waterwheels and rustic-looking bridges. There were fields with grazing
animals, and evidence of some tall-chimneyed industrial structures on the far side of
the lake. The lake itself was an easy fifty or sixty kilometers wide. Nestled around a
natu-ral harbor on its southern shore was the largest community Merlin had seen so
far. It was a haphazard jumble of several hundred mostly white, mostly single-story
buildings, arranged with the randomness of toy blocks littering a floor.

The airship skirted the edge of the town and then descended quickly. It
approached what was clearly some kind of secure compound, judging by the
guarded fence that encircled it. There was a pair of airstrips arranged in a cross
formation, and a dozen or so aircraft parked around a painted copy of the crescent
emblem. Four skeletal docking towers rose from another area of the compound,
stayed by guylines. A battle-weary pair of partially de-flated airships was already
tethered. Merlin pulled back to allow the incom-ing craft enough space to complete
its docking. The net was lowered back down from the gondola, depositing the
airplaneтАФits wings now crumpled, its fuselage buckledтАФon the apron below.
Service staff rushed out of bun-kers to untangle the mess and free the pilot. Merlin
brought his ship down at a clear part of the apron and doused the engines as soon as
the landing skids touched the ground.

It wasnтАЩt long before a wary crowd had gathered around Tyrant. Most of
them wore long leather coats, heavily belted, with the crescent emblem sewn into the
right breast. They had scarves wrapped around their lower faces, almost to the nose.
Their helmets were leather caps, with long flaps covering the sides of the face and
the back of the neck. Most of them wore goggles; a few wore some kind of
breathing apparatus. At least half the number were aiming barreled weapons at the
ship, some of which needed to be set up on tripods, while some even larger wheeled
cannons were being propelled across the apron by teams of well-drilled soldiers.
One figure was gesticulat-ing, directing the armed squads to take up specific
positions.

тАЬCan you understand what heтАЩs saying?тАЭ Merlin asked, knowing that Tyrant
would be picking up any external sounds.

тАЬIтАЩm going to need more than a few minutes to crack their language, Merlin,
even if it is related to something in my database, of which thereтАЩs no guarantee.тАЭ

тАЬFine. IтАЩll improvise. Can you spin me some flowers?тАЭ

тАЬWhere exactly are you going? What do you mean, flowers?тАЭ

Merlin paused at the airlock. He wore long boots, tight black leather trou-sers,