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

he watched as the first prisoner was tied to the two trees, and the thick ropes holding the trees in position
were knocked off notched stumps, and the two tall trunks returned to an upright position, with a stately
swaying motion that had not the slightest hitch in it when the prisoner was ripped apart. Blood fountained
from the head and the body, now separated. Thel saw that the beach around the two trees was littered
with lumps here and there, all a dark brown, now splattered with red: the wreckage of lives.

At that distance people were the size of dolls, and they heard nothing of them over the sounds of waves.
The executioners tied each prisoner to the two trees in a different manner, so that the second came apart
at the limbs, and the third in the middle, leaving a long loop of intestine hanging between the two poles.

Thel found he was sitting. His skin was covered with a sour sweat. He felt cold. He moved in front of
Garth, took his face in his hands. "The spine kings?"

Garth nodded miserably.

"Who are they?"

No response. Feeling the futility of the question, Thel stood and went to Mo, who laughed maliciously as
he saw Thel's face.
"What will you do?" Thel asked.

"Go have a look. They'll be drinking tonight, they'll all get drunk and there'll be little watch kept. They
fear no one in any case. We can be quiet, and some of us will go have a look for our kind. If we can find
them, we can see what kind of lock they're under. It may be possible to slip them out on a night like this.
We're lucky to have seen that," he said, ironic to the point of snarling. "We know they'll be off guard."

Thel nodded, impressed despite himself by Julo's courage. "I want to come with you," he said. "I can
look for the swimmer."

"She'll be under stronger guard," Julo warned him. "But you're welcome to try. It's why you're here,
right?"



7. Two Xs



So in the long indigo twilight they made their way around the rim of the crater bay like ghosts, stepping so
silently that the loudest sound coming from them was their heartbeats, locking at the backs of their open
mouths. Shadows with heartbeats, as silent as the fear of death, slipping from trunk to trunk and
searching the forest ahead with the acute gaze of hunted beasts ... the spine king sentinels carried
crossbows, Julo had said. They descended the crater wall well away from the village, and then worked
their way back to it through a thin forest of pines, stepping across a carpet of brown needles.

Ahead came the sound of voices, and the beach stream. The leaves of the treefolk's shoulder bushes
rustled when they moved too quickly. It was getting dark, the color draining out of everything except the
pinpricks of fire dancing in the black needles ahead.

Drumming began, parodying their heavy heartbeats. They hugged the crater wall, circled to the edge of a