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

I did not say yes, but I followed her across the rocky field, avoiding the bayonet spikes of
yucca and the spines of low cacti in the gloom, until we came into the lighted area of the
compound.
How long, I wondered, until the fuel oil for the generators runs out? This answer I knew -- it
was part of my job to keep the generators maintained and fueled. We had six days' supply in the
main tanks and another ten days in the reserve tanks that were never to be touched except in
emergency. With the Indian Market gone, there would be no resupply. Almost three weeks of electric
lights and refrigeration and power equipment and then ... what? Darkness, decay, and an end to the
incessant construction, tearing down, and rebuilding that had been the background noise at
Taliesin for the last four years.
I thought perhaps that we were going to the dining hall, but we walked past those lighted
windows -- groups of people still sitting at the tables, talking earnestly, glancing up with eyes
only for Aenea as we passed -- I was invisible to them in their hour of panic -- and then we
approached Mr. Wright's private drafting studio and his office, but we did not stop there. Nor did
we stop in the beautiful little conference room where a small group sat to watch a final movie --
three weeks until the movie projectors did not run -- nor did we turn into the main drafting room.
Our destination was a stone-and-canvas workshop set far down the driveway on the south side, a
useful outbuilding for working with toxic chemicals or noisy equipment. I had worked here often in
the first couple of years at the Fellowship, but not in recent months.
A. Bettik was waiting at the door. The android had a slight smile on his bland, blue face,
rather like the one he had worn when carrying the birthday cake to Aenea's surprise party.
"What?" I said, still irritated, looking from the girl's tired face to the android's smug
expression.
Aenea stepped into the workshop and turned on the light. On the worktable in the center of the
little room sat a small boat, not much more than two meters in length. It was shaped rather like a
seed sharpened on both ends, enclosed except for a single, round cockpit opening with a nylon
skirt that could obviously be tightened around the occupant's waist. A two-bladed paddle lay on
the table next to the boat. I stepped closer and ran my hand over the hull: a polished fiberglass
compound with internal aluminum braces and fittings.
Only one other person at the Fellowship could do such careful work. I looked at A. Bettik
almost accusingly. He nodded.
"It's called a kayak," said Aenea, running her own hand over the polished hull.
"It's an old Earth design."
"I've seen variations on it," I said, refusing to be impressed. "The Ice Claw Ursus rebels used
small boats like this."
Aenea was still stroking the hull, all of her attention there. It was as if I had not spoken.


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"I asked A. Bettik to make it for you," she said. "He's worked for weeks here."
"For me," I said dully. My stomach tightened at the realization of what was coming. Aenea moved
closer. She was standing directly under the hanging light, and the shadows under her eyes and
cheekbones made her look much older than sixteen. "We don't have the raft anymore, Raul." I knew
the raft she meant. The one that had carried us across so many worlds until it was chopped up in
the ambush that almost killed us on God's Grove. The raft that had carried us down the river under
the ice on Sol Draconi Septem and through the deserts of Hebron and QomRiyadh and across the world
ocean of Mare Infinitus. I knew the raft she meant. And I knew what this boat meant.
"So I'm to take this back the way we came?" I raised a hand as if to touch the thing, but then