"Bruce Sterling - Islands In The Net" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

peeling, chromed edge of a home appliance. Its simulated
plastic wood grain crumbled under Laura's fingers like old
linoleum tile. She kicked the dead machine several times to
loosen it. Then, grunting and heaving, she wrenched it up
from its wet cavity in the sand. It came up sullenly, like a
rotten tooth.
It was a video cassette recorder. Twenty years of grit and
brine had made it a solid mass of corrosion. A thin gruel of
sand and broken shell dripped from its empty cassette slot.
It was an old-fashioned unit. Heavy and clumsy. Limping,
Laura dragged it behind her by its cord. She looked up the
beach for the local trash can.
She spotted it loitering near a pair of fishermen, who stood
in hip boots in the gentle surf. She called out. "Trash can!
The can pivoted on broad rubber treads and rolled- toward
her voice. It snuffled across the beach, mapping its way with
bursts of infrasound. It spotted Laura and creaked to a stop
beside her.
Laura hefted the dead recorder and dropped it into the open
barrel with a loud, bonging thump. "Thank you for keeping
our beaches clean," the can intoned. "Galveston appreciates
good citizenship. Would you like to register for a valuable
cash prize?"
"Save it for the tourists," Laura said. She jogged on
toward home, favoring her ankle.
Home loomed above the high-tide line on twenty sand-
colored buttresses.
The Lodge was a smooth half cylinder of dense concretized
sand, more or less the color and shape of a burnt bread loaf.
A round two-story tower rose from the center. Massive con-
crete arches held it a dozen feet above the beach.
A broad canopy in candy-stripe red and white shaded the
Lodge's walls. Under the canopy, a sun-bleached wooden
walkway girdled the building. Behind the walkway's railings,
morning sunlight gleamed from the glass doors of half a
dozen guest rooms, which faced east to the sea.
A trio of guest kids were already out on the beach. Their
parents were from a Rizome Canadian firm, and they were all
vacationing at company expense. The kids wore navy blue
sailor suits and nineteenth-century Fauntleroy hats with trail-
ing ribbons. The clothes were souvenirs from Galveston's
historical district.
The biggest kid, a ten-year-old, ran headlong toward Laura,
holding a long wooden baton over his head. Behind him, a
modern window-sculpture kite leapt from the others' arms, wing
after tethered wing peeling loose in blue and green pastels.
Yanked free, each fabric aerofoil flapped into shape, caught
the wind, and flung itself into flight. The ten-year-old slowed
and turned, fighting its pull. The long kite bucked like a
serpent, its movements eerily sinuous. The children screamed