"Kim Stanley Robinson - The Years Of Rice And Salt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

centre. There were about ten of these gigantic outlandish ships, with another twenty smaller ones
anchored among them. 'Ah good,' said Zeyk to the zambuco's captain and owner. 'The Chinese are
here.'

The Chinese! Bold had had no idea they owned such a great fleet as this one. It made sense, though.
Their pagodas, their great wall; they liked to build big.
The fleet was like an archipelago. All on board the zambuco looked at the great ships, abashed and
apprehensive, as if faced with seagoing gods. The large Chinese ships were as long as a dozen of the
biggest dhows, and Bold counted nine masts on one of them. Zeyk saw him and nodded. 'Look well.
Those will soon be your home, God willing.'

The zambuco's master brought them inshore on a breath of a breeze. The town's little waterfront was
entirely occupied by the landing boats of the visitors, and after some discussion with Zeyk, the zambuco's
owner beached his craft just south of the waterfront. Zeyk and his man rolled up their robes and stepped
over the freeboard into the water, and helped the whole string of slaves over the side onto land. The
green water was as warm as blood, or even hotter.

Bold spotted some Chinese, wearing their characteristic red felt coats even here, where they were
certainly much too warm. They wandered the market, fingering the goods on display and chattering
among themselves, trading with the aid of a translator Zeyk knew. Zeyk approached and greeted him
effusively, asked about direct trade with the Chinese visitors. The translator introduced him to some of
the Chinese, who seemed polite, even affable, in their usual way. Bold found himself trembling slightly,
perhaps from heat and hunger, perhaps from the sight of the Chinese, after all these years, on the other
side of the world. Still pursuing their business.

Zeyk and his assistant led the slaves through the market. It was a riot of smell, colour and sound. People
as black as pitch, their eyeballs and teeth flashing white or yellow against their skin, offered goods and
bartered happily. Bold followed the others past

Great mounds of green and yellow fruit, Rice, coffee, dried fish and squid,

Lengths and bolts of coloured cotton cloth,

Some spotted, others striped whiteandblue; Bales of Chinese silk, piles of Mecca carpets; Huge brown
nuts, copper pans

Filled with coloured beads or gemstones, Or round balls of sweetsmelling opium;

Pearls, raw copper, carnelian, quicksilver; Daggers and swords, turbans, shawls;

Elephant tusks, rhinoceros horns,
Yellow sandalwood, ambergris,

Ingots and coinstrings of gold and silver, White cloth, red cloth, porcelains,

All the things of this world, solid in the sun.

And then the slave market, again in a square of its own, next to the main market, with a central auction
block, so much like a lama's dais when empty.