"Tilley, Patrick - The Amtrack Wars 06 - Earth-Thunder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tilley Patrick)

edge of his guilt and anger became blunted. He slumped back on his
heels, round-shouldered under the burden of sorrow and lapsed into
total immobility, hands hanging limply between his thighs, his
expressionless eyes blind to all external sensation - the classic
symptoms of catatonia. For nearly an hour, not a muscle twitched.

Nothing moved except for the occasional tear which rolled down his
cheeks then, suddenly, he jerked into life and when he turned his
bloodied, dirt-streaked face towards her, the eyes were dry and
clear.

'Come,' he said. 'We have work to do."

Using Tracker machetes, they cut down and hauled back a large quantity
of pine saplings which they hewed into eight-foot lengths and built a
square funeral pyre, interleaving the layers of slim logs with the
broken bodies of the women and the young children, laid on a bed and
under a cover of pine branches.

Despite her training, Roz found it a heartbreaking task. In the
Federation, dead bodies were whisked away by the bag-men. Some were
delivered to the Medical College for autopsies and dissection by
students but once again the bag-men collected the bits. And it
occurred to Roz that she had never enquired what happened next.

She had merely assumed that the mortal remains of its soldier-citizens
were disposed of with the same clinical efficiency that characterised
most of the procedures evolved by the Amtrak Federation.

True or false, she was certain of one thing. The operation was not
something the kin-folk of the deceased were required to perform or
watch - as she had to do now.

They piled more branches around the outside of the log squares to mask
the bodies from view, then Cadillac set light to it using a potful of
glowing ashes from one of the burnt-out huts. There was a pungent
smell of resin as the pine needles caught fire, and with a crackling
roar the flames leapt skywards, carrying the spirits of the dead into
the arms of Mo-Town on a rising current of air.

With his half-naked body smeared with grey ash in the traditional style
of the Plainfolk, Cadillac squatted before the column of fire, just out
of range of the blistering heat, his arms wrapped around his
rib-cage.

And so began the second period of mourning.

For the rest of that day and throughout the following night, Cadillac
rocked silently back and forth, his heart and mind imprisoned in a
private world of grief which Roz could comprehend but could not wholly