"Mary Rosenblum - Jumpers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenblum Mary)

pull away, wondering what chemical it was secreting onto his skin, but Zlia had him by the wrist, and then
suddenly the shadows were brightening as if the sun had risen.

"Silvano did not buy the eggs for this one. This one happened on its own." Zlia's voice came from far
away. "He wishes to freeze it for the engineers, but I wish it to lay its own eggs, hatch its own babies."

He barely noticed her words. He was standing on a slender limb that swayed with the subtle pulse of the
enormous tree, utterly relaxed, poised between wind and sway and gravity, poised on a peak of utter
rightness. A sense of balance filled him, utterly sensualтАФunity of muscle and tree-flesh and the tug of the
earth. All were forces, and if you brought them into perfect unity you could тАж fly. Muscles flexing, he
pushed off, falling, flying, surfing down that slope of air, self, earth, riding it like you'd ride a wave. As if in
slow motion, a limb slid by overhead. He reached up, caught it, shifted that balance and his trajectory
slightly, surfed a new wave, reached for another branch тАж

And suddenly he was looking at тАж himself. Marveling at the broad planes of this stranger/self's face. "I'm
feeling your thoughts," he said and lifted his hand from the frog. It crouched on her palm, its throat
pulsing. "How does it do that?" he breathed, still dizzy with the ecstasy of his flight through the trees.
"That's what it's like?"

She nodded, her eyes shining.

Full of echoesтАФof her joy, that perfect balance with earth, air, and self, he leaned down and kissed her.
Her lips were soft, and she rubbed her smooth cheek slowly, gently against his face. Their kiss deepened,
and she arched against him, reached up to stroke his face.
Her claws traced a delicate line along his jaw, and Joaquin recoiled, euphoria shredding like mist in the
hot sun, seeing her inhuman proportions, her prehensile toes, the gleam of frogs in her thick hair. "I тАж I'm
sorry." He looked away, ashamed.

She shrugged, tucked the blue frog tenderly into her hair once more. Behind him, the monitor beeped
softly and insistently. Joachim spun around, his heart hammering. Onscreen, a faint shadow twisted.

A jumper.

His brain had gone numb, but his fingers moved on their own, focusing the image, enhancing it. The
fluctuating patch of gray began to shrink, taking on a sharper silhouette. It could almost be human, that
figure. It shimmered and twisted for another handful of seconds, then it faded and vanished. It was falling
through another universe, on its journey. Joaquin blinked and became aware that he was alone. "Zlia?" he
whispered. She stood on the very edge of the platform, facing his net. Looking for her ghosts?

She looked at him, her cat eyes burning with green fire in the darkness. "I saw it," she whispered and
leaped out into darkness.

"Zlia!" But she was gone, with only the rustle of foliage and the creak of a limb to mark her passage. And
then the insect noise swallowed even that.

He wondered what she had seen in the darkness. Not his jumper, certainly. Only his machines could see
that.

Perhaps she had merely seen herself, through his eyes. Joaquin stumbled back to his monitor, to crouch
like a supplicant in front of its blank eye for the remainder of the night.