"Kim Stanley Robinson - A Short, Sharp Shock" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

But he didn't see, and he arranged himself for sleep and looked up into the thickets of stars,
disappointed. Garth lay next to him, and much later, when the others were asleep, he whispered to him,
"You don't know where you came from. You have no idea how you came here or what you are. Worry
about that, and when you know those things, then worry about the great spine."



6. Kataptron Cove



The next dawn it was bitterly cold out on the swaying branches, and they sat back against the curved wall
of the biggest room shivering as Julo watched the sky to determine the exact moment of sunrise, hidden
behind the ridge. When he turned to pluck the fruit from the man next to him he took three, and the
others did the same. Thel restricted himself to his usual one of Garth's, and asked him why the others had
eaten more.

"We'll reach Kataptron Cove this evening."

And so they did. It was on the south side, in an arc the peninsula made. Here the granite side of the
peninsula was marred by the shattered walls of a small craterтАФa horseshoe ring of jagged black rock,
extending into the sea and broken open to it as its outermost point, so that the inside of the crater was a
small lagoon. Clearly it was an old volcanic vent, and as it was the first sign of vulcanism that Thel had
seen, he approached it with interest.

But he was soon distracted by the grim faces of the treefolk, who marched around him as if going into
battle. Foreboding charged the air, and the treefolk abandoned the trail that descended the southern
slope in a long traverse to the crater bay, and struggled through dense woods above the trail.

They descended into thick salt air rilled with the sound of waves, gliding from tree to tree like spirits,
moving very slowly onto the high crumbly rim of the crater, overlooking the inner lagoon. The curving
inner wall of the crater was a reddish cliff, overgrown with green. Where the crater met the spine a
stream fell down the inner wall and across the sand into the lagoon; on the banks of the stream there was
a permanent camp, built in a grove of trees that had been cleared of undergrowth. In the shadows of
these trees people moved, and smoke spiraled up through the sunbeams lancing among the branches.

In the depths of the grove there was a hubbub, and a crowd emerged onto the open beach, a gang
wearing leather skirts and belted short swords, and tight golden helmets. They chivvied along a short row
of prisoners, naked and in chains, and Thel heard Garth whimper softly. He looked around and saw that
the treefolk had their eyes fixed on the beach in horror and unwilling fascination. "What is it?" he said.

Garth pointed at where the grove met the beach. Two tall tree trunks standing beside each other had
been stripped bare; behind the trunks stood a platform about half their height. "It's the flex X," Garth
whispered, and would not elaborate. He sat with his back to the scene, head in hands.

Thel and the rest of the treefolk watched as a prisoner was hauled up the steps of the platform. Two
crews on the ground set about winding ropes tied to the top of each tree trunk, until the trunks were
crossing each other at about the level of the platform. Intuitively Thel understood the function of the large
bowed X the trees made, and his stomach contracted to a hard knot of tension and vicarious terror; still