"Jeff VanderMeer - Balzac's War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vandermeer Jeff)

The landscape had changed, become both rougher and smoother until buildings were all edges or had no
edges at all. Others gleamed with an odd hint of self-repair, their skins smooth and shiny.
They encountered the hull of a rusted hovercraft over which, looking like a weathered lizard, lay the
leathery, discarded skin of a dirigible. Balzac did not recognize the faded cr├иche insignia on the wrinkled
cloth. Near the hovercraft lay a misshapen rock, as tall as two or three autodocs. The top of the rock
was black and shiny.

"Let's sit down for a moment," Balzac said.

"If you must."

"I must. And besides, it's not just to rest. I've got leechee fruit."

They climbed up onto the rock and lay down on its smooth surface. He handed her a leechee and bit into
his own, the juice dribbling down his chin. The fruit helped to rejuvenate him and he soon became acutely
aware of her rising and falling chest, the sharp lines of her legs, the faint musk of sweat. She ate the
leechee in huge bites, ignoring the juice as it trickled down her neck and stained her dress.

The rock was warm and it relaxed him to lie there, so close together. Confidence rising, he tried to
explain why the city intrigued him so. He spoke of its rich history, how it must be considered the home of
their ancestors, how it used structural designs and technologies unknown to the cr├иche.

Propped up on one shoulder, Jamie gave him no encouragement. He stuttered, groping for the words that
might unlock a true sense of mystery, of scale.

Stymied, he started all over again, afraid that when he opened his mouth, the words would come out
jumbled and senseless.

"The city is alive."

"But it isn't," she said. "It's dead."

"But you're so wrong. I mean, you are wrong." He squinted at the city's outline until his eyes burned. "I
see these buildings and they're like dozens of individual keys, and if I can turn enough of the keys, the city
resurrects itself. Take that thing there." He pointed to a rectangular patch of sand dotted with eroded
stone basins and bounded by the nubs of walls. "That's not just a box of sand. That used to be a garden
or a park. And take that strip." He pointed to a slab of concrete running down the middle of the highway.
"That wasn't just a divider for traffic lanes - that was a plot of plants and grass."

"You mean that you see the city as if it were organic."

"Yes! Exactly! And if I can rebuild the city, you could bring back the plants and the trees, flesh out the
skeleton. There's a water source here - there must be - how else could the land support a city? In the old
books, if you look, you'll see they used plants for decoration."

"Plants for decoration," she said slowly, hesitantly. Then she lay back down against the rock.

His heart pounded against his rib cage. He had made her see it, if only for a moment.

A silence settled over them, the sun making Balzac lazy, the leechee fruit a coolness in his stomach.