"Dan Simmons - The rise of Endymion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

It was almost dusk when she joined me in the large garage Mr. Wright had ordered built half a
klick east of the compound. The structure was open on the sides except for canvas curtains, but it
had thick stone columns supporting a permanent redwood roof; it had been built to shelter the
dropship in which Aenea, A. Bettik, and I had arrived.
I had pulled back the main canvas door and was standing in the open hatch of the dropship when
I saw Aenea crossing the desert toward me.
On my wrist was the comlog bracelet that I had not worn in more than a year: the thing held
much of the memory of our former spaceship -- the Consul's ship from centuries ago -- and it had
been my liaison and tutor when I had learned to fly the dropship. I did not need it now -- the
comlog memory had been downloaded into the dropship and I had become rather good at piloting the
dropship on my own -- but it made me feel more secure.
The comlog was also running a systems check on the ship: chatting with itself, you might say.
Aenea stood just within the folded canvas. The sunset threw long shadows behind her and painted
the canvas red.
"How's the dropship?" she said. I glanced at the comlog readings.
"All right," I grunted, not looking her way.
"Does it have enough fuel and charge for one more flight?" Still not looking up, fiddling with
touchplates on the arm of the pilot's chair inside the hatch, I said, "Depends on where it's
flying to."


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Aenea walked to the dropship stairway and touched my leg. "Raul?"
This time I had to look at her.
"Don't be angry," she said. "We have to do these things."
I pulled my leg away. "Goddammit, don't keep telling me and everyone else what we have to do.
You're just a kid. Maybe there are things some of us don't have to do. Maybe going off on my own
and leaving you behind is one of those." I stepped off the ladder and tapped the comlog. The
stairs morphed back into the dropship hull. I left the garage and began walking toward my tent.
On the horizon, the sun was a perfect red sphere. In the last low rays of light, the stones and
canvas of the main compound looked as if they had caught fire -- the Old Architect's greatest
fear.
"Raul, wait!" Aenea hurried to catch up to me. One glance in her direction told me how
exhausted she was. All afternoon she had been meeting with people, talking to people, explaining
to people, reassuring people, hugging people. I had come to think of the Fellowship as a nest of
emotional vampires and Aenea as their only source of energy.
"You said that you would ... " she began.
"Yeah, yeah," I interrupted. I suddenly had the sense that she was the adult and that I was the
petulant child. To hide my confusion, I turned away again and watched the last of the sunset.
For a moment or two we were both silent, watching the light fade and the sky darken. I had
decided that Earth sunsets were slower and more lovely than the Hyperion sunsets I had known as a
child, and that desert sunsets were particularly fine. How many sunsets had this child and I
shared in the past four years? How many lazy evenings of dinner and conversation under the
brilliant desert stars? Could this really be the last sunset we would watch together? The idea
made me sick and furious.
"Raul," she said again when the shadows had grown together and the air was cooling, "will you
come with me?"