"S. M. Stirling - Terminator 3 - T2 The Future War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stirling S. M)

one hog a year, but still, you'd think she'd get used to it. The
smell of the blood made her stomach tighten, but it was hardly
the worst thing she'd smell today.

In the background the classic radio station played the 1812
Overture; it seemed somehow appropriate.

Once the beast was sufficiently drained, John put a hook into
its underjaw, and it being a smallish hog, he and Dieter dragged
it to the edge of the butchering platform, where a stock tank full
of boiling water waited. They submerged the animal, bobbing it
up and down for about five minutes to keep it from cooking, then
dragged it out again, having loosened the pig's bristles
sufficiently for the scrapers to work.

Sarah helped the men hoist the steaming animal onto the
sturdy board table. Then they went to work with scrapers while
she removed hair from its feet with her hands. The bristly
texture was oddly unorganic, like a brushтАФcome to that, pig
bristles had been used for brushes, back before synthetics.
 They worked silently except for the music or an occasional
grunt of effort, Sarah doing the prep work while the men did the
heavy lifting. Working methodically, they reduced the animal to
individual cuts of meat that, for the most part, bore no
resemblance to a once living animal.

She knew John felt sorry for the pigs. They were just smart
enough, some of them, to know what was coming.

Which gives them something in common with him!

The silence that had grown among them worried Sarah. It
had taken her a long time to really notice it. One of the first
disciplines she'd imposed on herself was to become a woman of
few words; it was safer that way. But in Paraguay she and John
had bantered and laughed all the time; they never did that now.
She and Dieter had once talked a lot, too. Now they spent their
time reading or working quietly, moving in concert from long
experience.

Sarah wondered if it meant that they'd run out of things to
say to one another. Was Dieter bored? Was it time for them to
move on? She thought about it, testing herself by imagining her
life going on without him. No! Sarah knew that she still loved
him. Often their eyes met, and the look in his told her that she
was loved in return. But the silence remained, and, if anything,
grew.

She sensed its origin in John. He'd grown so distant. It was
grief, she knew, and she respected that. She just didn't know how