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

staying right on his tail. Naousa was flying down the slope, carving wide curves and crying out for joyтАФ
Thel could hear the shouts wafting back at him as another impossible turn by Naousa skirted the cliffs. It
was thrilling to watch and Thel shouted himself, leaning hard left or right to follow Naousa's bold track,
and despite the fact that it was like bobsledding on an open ice slope with cliffs on both sides, Thel began
to enjoy himselfтАФto enjoy the contemplation of Naousa's expertise, and his own reproduction of it, and
the sheer noise of the sleds and the wind smashing his face and the tears streaming back over his ears and
off the cliff edges into space, falling down like dewdrop stars into the original salt.

It was a long ride but did not take much time. At the bottom they sledded out onto the grass of a
meadow and tumbled head over heels. Naousa picked up the sleds and tucked them behind a round
boulder perched on the ridge.

Down here the peninsula was different in character: the stone old and weathered and graying, the spine
only fifty to a hundred feet above the noisy sea, and the beaches to both sides wide, with sand white as
could be, even in the starless night. "The south side is the easiest walking," Naousa said, and headed
down to the north side.

Thel shouted thanks, and dropped to the south side, and walked west toward the sunrise. The sun would
be up soon, the sky to the west was blueing. The white sand underfoot was tightly packed; scuffing it
made a squeaking sound, squick, squick, and the scuffed sand sprayed ahead of Thel's feet in brief
blazes of phosphorus. The dunes behind the tidal stretch were neatly scalloped and covered with dense
short grass all blown flat, pointing west to the dawn. The dome of the sky was higher down here and
fuzzier, the blues of dawn glowing pastels. Then as he walked stars began popping into sight overhead
and he stepped knee-deep into the beach, as if the sand were gel; he was sinking in it, the sky was the
pink of cherry blossoms and he was in sand to his cheekbones, drowning in it.



11. Inside the Wave



The sun was hot on his cheek. There was too much light. He rolled on sand, shaded his eyes with a hand
and cracked a lid: his brain pulsed painfully and the eyelash-blurred gold-on-white pattern meant nothing
to him, then coalesced with a jolt that jerked his body up. The swimmer lay on the wide morning beach.
Beyond her lay Garth and the three facewomen, leaves in their hair and long scratches on their arms and
legs. Then he saw the shape of the mirror, in a bag tucked under the swimmer's outstretched arm. He
was sitting and he almost rolled to her side, every muscle creaking as if carved of wood. He shook her
arm, afraid to touch the bag holding the mirror.
She woke, and he asked her what had happened. She stared at him.

"I don't remember," he explained. "I mean, Tinou and the others pushed me through that," pointing at the
mirror bag.

"After that ..."

She spoke slowly. "The spine kings attacked and everything caught fire. The sorcerers left you on the
plaza, and the mirror as well. We picked you up and carried you away, and took the mirror too. Then
you woke and told us to follow you, and we did. We climbed out on the cliff face beside Oia to escape
the sorcerers and the spine kings, and the next night we climbed to the spine and started west. You