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

The sun had set an hour before, and a line of clouds over the western horizon was the pink of azaleas, set
in a sky the color of lapis. The seven sat around a small fire:

Thel, the swimmer, Garth, Tinou, and three women.

These women all had faces cast in the same mold, and a strange mold it was; where their right eye should
have been the skin bulged out into another, smaller face, lively and animated, with features that did not
look like the larger one around itтАФexcept for the fact that its own little right eye was again replaced by a
face, a very little faceтАФwhich had an even tinier face where its right eye should have been, and so on and
so on, down in a short curve to the limit of visibility, and no doubt beyond.

This oddity made the three women's faces impressive and even frightening, and because the three
full-sized faces seldom spoke, Thel always felt that when talking to them he was really conversing with
one of the smaller facesтАФ perhaps the very smallest, beyond the limit of visibilityтАФ which might reply in
a tiny high squeak at any time.

But now the three women stood before Tinou, and one said, "We want to know what you took from
Kataptron Cove."

"I took this bag," Tinou said, "and it's mine."

"It is all of ours," the middle woman said, her voice heavy and slow. Her companions moved to Tinou's
sides. "Show us what it is."

In the dusk it was hard to tell if expressions or firelight were flickering across Tinou's long and mobile
face. Thel and the swimmer leaned forward together to see better this small confrontation, and Tinou
flashed them his friendly smile. "I suppose there is justice in that," he said, and picked up his shoulder
bag. Untying the drawstring he said, "Here," and slipped something out of the bag, a small shiny plate of
some sort.
"Gold," the middle faceworoan said. Tinou nodded. "Yes, in a manner of speaking. But it is more than
that, in fact. It is a mirror, see?" He held it upтАФa round smooth mirror with no rim, the glass of it golden
rather than silver. Held up against the dark eastern sky it gleamed like a lamp, revealing a rich blue line in
a field of pink.

"It is no ordinary mirror," Tinou said. "My people will reward us generously when we arrive with it, I
assure you."

He put it back in the bag, and for a moment it seemed to Thel he was stuffing light into the bag as well,
until with a hard jerk he closed the drawstring. Wind riffled over them, below lay the calm surface of the
sea, and in the east the moon rose, its blasted face round and brilliant; looking from it to the quick yellow
banners of their fire, Thel suddenly felt he walked in a world of riches. Night beach and big-handed
children, running the mirrorflake road on the sea. ...

The next dawn they were off again. At first Thel had been shy of the swimmer, even a bit frightened of
her; she couldn't know how important her image had been to him before the rescue, and he didn't know
what to say to her. But now he walked behind her or beside her, depending on the width of the trail, and
as they walked he asked her questions. Who was she? What did she remember from before the night
they had washed onto the beach? What had gotten them to that point under the water? What was her
name?