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

Third turned her head, and felt the withering blast of antilife pass her by. It scraped
her ankle, and the flesh over the bone rose up in protest, bubbles of oil seething
under a patch of skin. She felt the back-wash of air as they passed. She felt a wing
throb, almost gently for a moment, on the top of her head. There was tinkling,
musical laughter, a sprinkle of notes that al-most reassured Third Child. Then she
looked down.
Her elder sister lay in a puddle. The gingham dress had gone orange. Her skin was a
sickly, translu-cent yellow, puckered up and crinkled and soft. Her pigtails had gone
altogether; strands of hair blew in the dust.
Overhead, the Sharks made a rude, farting sound. They sashayed in the air, bumping
their mid-dles from side to side, as if they had hips. They were mocking humankind.
The Neighbors followed soon after, in the cavernous bellies of winged transports.
There were ninety of them, in three parties. They did not look different from the
Unconquered People. They had the same sleek brown skin and they were not ugly.
They wore green coolsuits against the heat, and had bands of metal strapped to their
index fingers that spurted fire and light where they pointed. They also carried the
cere-monial bayonets that were the mark of a true warrior. The Sharks hovered
overhead holding the fluttering banners of the Neighbors in their teeth.
Third's mother sat in the darkest part of the house, Third and her second sister on
her lap. Rocking them, going "Sssh, Ssssh, Sssh," to soothe them. The eldest sister
still lay in the dust outside: the second sister wailed inconsolably. For Third
everything was muffled, even in the pain in her ankle. Third was si-lent. She must
have gone for a drink of water, for at some point she was standing in front of the
window by the tub. Through a wavering curtain of hot, rising air. she saw two village
men being led out into the paddies. All the sound was muffled, too, except for the
buzzing of flies.
One of the villagers was her cousin. He had a soft round face and a thick moustache.
He wore a crisp plaid shirt that his mother would have beaten clean that morning,
and the loose black leggings of the People. The trousers had an airy slit up the inside
leg, and one of the Neighbors ran the blade of his bayonet up along it. Her cousin
stepped back, scowling, too anxious to be angry. Third saw one of the Neighbors
tell a joke, laughing, and flick his cigarette into the water.
Both men were pushed down onto their knees. The other villager, a wiry and nervous
uncle, began to plead, jabbering. A Neighbor knelt on his shoulder, and pulled his
head back, hard, by the hair. The uncle held up the thin palms of his hands against
the bay-onets.
Third's cousin knelt, fists folded, calmly glancing over his shoulders at the familiar
hills, as if he did not care about them, not yet sure, unable to believe, that he was
going to die.
Third did not remember his murder. She remem-bered the face of the man who did
it. He was tiny and thin and wretched, with outlines of gold around his
tobacco-stained teeth. His cheeks were deeply scarred by pockmarks, and he was
grinning a rictus grin. It took over the lower half of his face, and Third understood
that he was grinning in order to frighten, because he felt evil, and he thought that this
was what evil looked like, and that evil made him important.
Suddenly her cousin was on his side, his face still soft and confused. Once he and
Third had gone out together to look at the stars, and he had lain on the ground like
that. Third had fallen asleep with her head on his chest. Blood spread across his
chest now, in the orderly patterns of the crisp plaid shirt.
He was the Accountant. No one else would know so well how the yarrow worked.