"Geoff Ryman - The Unconquered Country" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ryman Geoff)

shaking.
"Third Child, cousin?" he asked, alarmed, mean-ing, What is wrong? He thought her
mother had died.
"The numbers. The yarrow," she said, her words like little parcels.
"Ah!" said her cousin, and began to smile.
"Show me how they work!"
"But you know how they work." Third said nothing. Her cousin cradled her up next
to him, and kissed her forehead, and held her to his plump bosom and his crisp plaid
shirt. "Your teacher," he said, "says I must not."
He could feel her wilt.
"You will get used to the new numbers in time," he cajoled her, shaking her slightly
with affection. It was touching how important small things seemed to children. "You
will see. They are new, modern num-bers, and we can use them to fight the
Neighbors." But his face was darkening, for under his hand, the child was trembling.
Third's eldest sister came looking for her. "Little princess!" she said in alann. "What
has she done to you?" They began to understand that something had been broken.


Third and the yarrow numbers
Sometimes at night, the old numbers would re-turn, like the ghosts they were. Like
ghosts, they were disordered, limping. The things they whispered made no sense.
They were sad in the way that ghosts are sad, trying to fight their way back to life,
back to sense, irredeemably marred.
Third welcomed them, and hoped for them and wanted them to work. She pitied
them, and finally, she grew weary of them. She could still use the real yarrow stalks
as well as other children did. That was, after all, enough.
She did not remember the exact day that the teacher left. She only remembered the
hateful nugget of gladness she felt when the teacher was gone. The teacher was
going back to the war. When Third heard the teacher had been killed, she was glad.
There was the rest of the summer. It seemed a long time then. It rained. The marriage
of Third's cousin was arranged. He would be wed after the monsoons, and Third
would help with the flowers.
His family had a house-birthing for him. His new house was born, and was led
baby-wet and making soft, breathy noises from house to house. It stumbled on its
fat, dimpled white legs, and it wore strings of bangles as it was paraded. The People
sang it songs, and patted it, and the children rode on its patient back. Third's cousin
would train it as it grew, to shelter his new family.
The houses of the People were alive. They lived for generations, with wattles and
wrinkles and patches of whisker, like ancient grannies. They wore roofed porches
from their heads, like reed hats. They knew their families and cared for them. It was
said that they remembered even those who had died long ago, and grieved for them.
It was said they had a special cry for the dead, to greet their family's ghosts.
Third was under her house when the Neighbors came. She was feeding the hens. In
her language, hens were called Great, Fat Ladies in White Bloomers. Third fed them
slugs she had collected from the pad-dies. She counted their eggs and she knew
which Ladies were fattest. She knew their future from their weight.
It was the first cloudless day. The old house above her sighed and shifted on its
haunches. It fed on light. The borders of its shadow were sharply defined on the
dust.
Suddenly there was a warbling. It was from the men on the hill, and the house stood