"Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space 04 - Absolution Gap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

movement. He splashed into the shallows, the bottle-green water lapping
just above his knees. He could barely feel the cold through the thick
leather of his boots and leggings. The boat was drifting slowly now that he
had disembarked, but with a flick of his wrist he took up the slack in the
line and brought the bow around by several degrees. He started walking,
leaning hard to haul the boat. The rocks beneath his feet were
treacherous, but for once his bow-legged gait served him well. He did not
break his rhythm until the water was only halfway up his boots and he
again felt the boat scrape bottom. He hauled it a dozen strides further
ashore, but that was as far as he was prepared to risk dragging it.
He saw that Vasko had reached the shallows. The young man
abandoned swimming and stood up in the water.
Scorpio got back into the boat, flakes and scabs of corroded metal
breaking away in his grip as he tugged the hull closer by the gunwale. The
boat was past its hundred and twentieth hour of immersion, this likely to
be its final voyage. He reached over the side and dropped the small
anchor. He could have done so earlier, but anchors were just as prone to
erosion as hulls. It paid not to place too much trust in them.
Another glance at Vasko. He was picking his way carefully towards the
boat, his arms outstretched for balance.
Scorpio gathered his companionтАЩs clothes and stuffed them into his
pack, which already contained rations, fresh water and medical supplies.
He heaved the pack on to his back and beganтАШ the short trudge to dry land,
taking care to check on Vasko occasionally. Scorpio knew he had been
hard on Vasko, but once the anger had started rising in him there had
been no holding it in check. He found this development disturbing. It was
twenty-three years since Scorpio had raised his hand in anger against a
human, except in the pursuit of duty. But he recognised that there was
also a violence in words. Once, he would have laughed it off, but lately he
had been trying to live a different kind of life. He thought he had put
certain things behind him.
It was, of course, the prospect of meeting Clavain that had brought all
that fury to the surface. Too much apprehension, too many emotional
threads reaching back into the blood-drenched mire of the past. Clavain
knew what Scorpio had been. Clavain knew exactly what he was capable of
doing.
He stopped and waited for the young man to catch up with him.
тАЬSirтАжтАЭ Vasko was out of breath and shivering.
тАЬHow was it?тАЭ
тАЬYou were right, sir. It was a bit colder than it looked.тАЭ
Scorpio shrugged the pack from his back. тАЬI thought it would be, but
you did all right. IтАЩve got your things with me. YouтАЩll be dry and warm in
no time. Not sorry you came?тАЭ
тАЬNo, sir. Wanted a bit of adventure, didnтАЩt I?тАЭ
Scorpio passed him his things. тАЬYouтАЩll be after a bit less of it when
youтАЩre my age.тАЭ
It was a still day, as was often the case when the cloud cover on Ararat
was low. The nearer sunтАФthe one that Ararat orbitedтАФwas a washed-out
smudge hanging low in the western sky. Its distant binary counterpart was
a hard white jewel above the opposite horizon, pinned between a crack in