"Tepper, Sheri S - A Plague Of Angels - plangel4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

On old Seoca's terrace above the canyon, the group remained unchanged. Mitty had not come to join them. None of them had found reason to go elsewhere. Oracle looked from face to face, wondering if the others found their minds wandering as she did, wishing to be in another place, another time. She caught old Seoca's eyes and flushed. He knew' what she was thinking.
It was Nimwes who broke the silence.
"What can we do'? Will the walkers let us buy food in the marketplace?"
"I think not," said Tom. "In fact, the traders are leaving now. The walkers are blocking the gates."
"Are any of the walkers inside the Place of Power?" His Wisdom asked. Tom went away and came back again to say there were none in the Place, which didn't mean they couldn't come inside anytime they decided to do so. Nothing prevented their doing so, so far as Tom could see.


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"Are there provisions here?" asked Oracle. "Such a large place should have provisions for a siege."
"That's the word I was reaching for," the old man agreed, nodding at
her. "A siege. Ellel's bottled us up, hasn't she? We are under siege." "Like rats in a trap," said Arakny. "Until she gets back, at least."
"What's going to happen?" Cermit demanded of Oracle. "You're the
soothsayer. Can we last until she returns?" Oracle mused, "I can't see her return." Abasio asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean what I said. I can't always see the future, I can't always prophesy.
This is one of the times I can't. I don't know what's going to happen!" The group was silent, staring at one another.
"They could be delayed, up there in space," mused the old man. "There are provisions up there that would allow them to stay a long time, if they chose to do so. Lo.ng enough for us to become very hungry. If you choose to act, it might be wise to do so while you still have the strength."
"Weapons," said Abasio. "Surely there are weapons we can use against the walkers!"
"Some we can adapt," admitted Tom. "We have some on the roof, but they'd have to be moved to the outside walls. Mostly they guard against attack from above. Dragons. Wiverns once, a long time ago."
"I wish Mitty were here!" cried Berkli. He turned to Qualary, asking, "Do you know where Ellel controls the walkers from?"
"From a closet, in a room in her quarters. It's locked, and she told me not to trifle with it, for if I do, something dreadful will happen."
"Perhaps that is why Oily went," Abasio said to Arakny. "Perhaps she knew it made no difference whether she stayed here or went there, that death waited in either place."
"Must it'?" demanded Farmwife Suttle. "Can't men kill those things?"
"I saw three men kill one," whispered Qualary. "In the marketplace, with little more than their bare hands."
"Which is about the odds we'd need," said Berkli in a deadly, matterof-fact voice. "Three to one might manage. As it happens, the numbers go the other way. There are approximately three of them to each able-bodied, adult one of us, if we included Anders and Ellels."
"It seems we could drag matters out for some time," said Burned Man. "But | have some experience of stretched-out dying, and I do not recommend it."
All during the long day that followed, during which they came and went, taking inventory of what were obviously totally inadequate foodstores, his words came back to torment them.


372 Sheri S. Tepper

CummyNup and Sybbis had added an additional dozen or so ex-gangers, townsmen, truckers, and who-knows-whats during their journey to what had come to be called the Mountain of Revelation, all of these persons willing to fall in with the larger group and each of them soon well versed in the many marvels attributed to Abasio the Cat. The stories had come to be called collectively the Adventures of Abasio the Cat or sometimes simply Cat-tales. Some of them had a fragment of truth at the heart of them, some of them had none, and some of them were stories originally told about other heroes, now foisted onto Abasio. It didn't matter to the hearers, and as they were told and retold, it mattered less and less to CummyNup and Sybbis.
As they approached the Mountain of Revelation, anticipation mounted that they would soon find the Cat himself, who had gone on a courageous quest, disguised as an ordinary human and escorting an archetypal Orphan in the fulfillment of a prophecy. CummyNup said the words without thinking what they meant. Sybbis visualized the Orphan as a dirty-faced waif of some five or six years, with gap teeth and scabby knees, and she visualized the prophecy as something like a highly ritualized tally, after which Abasio would return to her triumphant.
Though a few of those who joined the mob had subsequently died of one thing or another, most often of fighting among themselves, the rest seemed reasonably amicable and immune to the disease that had wiped the cities clean. Among them they counted a respectable armamentarium, and during their progress west they acquired a number of vehicles and a considerable store of fuel. All together, they constituted a larger gang with greater mobility and firepower than any seen in the cities for some generations.
They had established certain habits and customs on the journey west, their own chain of command, their own ways of laying out their camp and setting guards for the watches of the night. Orders were issued by Captain CummyNup to his lieutenants and from them to the troops. Despite being Captain, CummyNup often followed his old practice of wanglering around in the dark, and it was during one of these midnight peregrinations that he encountered Coyote for the second time.
"Whatso, CummyNup," greeted Coyote.
"Whatso," replied CummyNup.
"You still lookin' for Basio?" asked Coyote, in a good imitation of ganget talk.
"Still lookin'," said CummyNup. "Got more men than before too. Whatever Basio need, we got it."
Coyote scratched as close to his rump as he could get with a contorted


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hind leg and thought about this. "You see that canyon over there'?" he asked,
pointing to a pocket of dark in a landscape largely made up of such pockets. CummyNup said he did.
"Basio needs you to be down that canyon, cross the bottom, ready to go up the far side by mornin'."
CummyNup sucked his teeth and thought about this. "How far from here?" he asked finally.
"Far enough you should leave pretty quick now," replied Coyote. "And don't make any noise!"
CummyNup agreed absentmindedly. When gangers went off on a tally, they never made any noise. Not until the battle started. He could get the men starled and have them where Abasio needed them by morning.