"Ian Watson - Slow Birds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

Slow Birds
by Ian Watson

Ian Watson, a graduate of Oxford University, lives with his wife and
daughter in North Hamptonshire, Great Britain. He has taught in Japan
and Tanzania. His first science fiction novel, The Embedding, won the
French Prix Apollo and was runner-up for the John W. Campbell
Memorial Award; his second novel in the field, The Jonah Kit, won the
British Science Fiction Association Award. He is also the author of The
Martian Inca, Alien Embassay, Miracle Visitors, God's World, and
Chekhov's Journey. His most recent novel, The Book of the River, the first
volume of a triology in progress, was serialized in The Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction. He is a member of the Campaign for
Nuclear Disarmament and of the growing British organization BAND
(Book Action for Nuclear Disarmament).
Ian Watson is the British regional director of the Science Fiction
Writers of America and the European editor of the SFWA Bulletin.
Slow Birds was nominated for the 1983 Nebula for best novelette.



It was Mayday, and the skate-sailing festival that year was being held at
Tuckerton.
By late morning, after the umpires had been out on the glass plain
setting red flags around the circuit, cumulous clouds began to fill a
previously blue sky, promising ideal conditions for the afternoon's sport.
No rain; so that the glass wouldn't be an inch deep in water as last year at
Atherton. No dazzling glare to blind the spectators, as the year before that
at Buckby. And a breeze verging on brisk without ever becoming fierce:
perfect to speed the competitors' sails along without lifting people off their
feet and tumbling them, as four years previously at Edgewood when a
couple of broken ankles and numerous bruises had been sustained.
After the contest there would be a pig roast; or rather the succulent
fruits thereof, for the pig had been turning slowly on its spit these past
thirty-six hours. And there would be kegs of Old Codger Ale to be cracked.
But right now Jason Babbidge's mind was mainly occupied with checking
out his glass-skates and his fine crocus-yellow hand-sail.
As high as a tall man, and of best old silk, only patched in a couple of
places, the sail's fore-spar of flexible ash was bent into a bow belly by a
strong hemp cord. Jason plucked this thoughtfully like a harpist, testing
the tension. Already a fair number of racers were out on the glass, showing
off their paces to applause. Tuckerton folk mostly, they wereтАФacting as if
they owned the glass hereabouts and knew it more intimately than any
visitors could. Not that it was in any way different from the same glass
over Atherton way.
Jason's younger brother Daniel whistled appreciatively as a Tuckerton
man carrying purple silk executed perfect circles at speed, his sail
shivering as he tacked.
"Just look at him, Jay!"
"What, Bob Marchant? He took a pratfall last year. Where's the use in