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

searching. Now the body lay there looking like some sad little African girl, sick to death from an infection
in her loins.

But the fever passed. Kyu ate more and more. Even when he was active again, however, he spoke little
compared to before. His eyes were not the same either; they stared at people like a bird's eyes do, as if
they did not quite believe anything they saw. Bold realized that the boy had travelled out of his body,
gone into the bardo and come back someone else. All different. That black boy was dead; this one
started anew.
'What is your name now?' he asked him.

'Kyu,' the boy said, but unsurprised, as if he didn't remember telling Bold before.

'Welcome to this life, Kyu.'

Sailing on the open ocean was a strange way to travel. The skies flew by overhead, but it never looked
as if they had moved anywhere. Bold tried to reckon what a day's ride was for the fleet, wondering if it
was faster in the long run than horses, but he couldn't do it. He could only watch the weather and wait.
...............

Twentythree days later the fleet sailed into Calicut, a city much bigger than any of the ports of Zanj, as
big as Alexandria, or bigger.

Sandstone towers bulbed, walls crenellated,
All overgrown by a riot of greens.

This close to the sun life fountains into the sky. Around the stone of the central districts,

Light wooden buildings fill the green bush Up the coast in both directions,

Into the hills behind; the city extends

As far as the eye can see, up the sides Of a mountain ringing the town.

Despite its great size, all activity in the city stopped at the arrival of the Chinese fleet. Bold and Kyu and
the Ethiopians looked through their grating at the shouting crowds, all those people in their colours
waving their arms overhead in awe.

'These Chinese will conquer the whole world.'

'Then the Mongols will conquer China,' Bold said.

He saw Kyu watching the throng on shore. The boy's expression was that of a preta, unburied at death.
Certain demon masks had that look, the old Bon look, like Bold's father when enraged, staring into a
person's soul and saying I'm taking this along with me, you can't stop me and you'd better not try. Bold
shuddered to see such a face on a mere boy.

They were put to work unloading cargo into boats, and taking other loads out of boats onto the ship, but
none of the slaves was sold, and only once were they taken ashore, to help break up a mass of cloth
bolts and carry them to the long low dugouts being used to transfer goods from the beaches to the
treasure fleet.