"Peter Watts - Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

the equatorial lights can't reach all the way around its convex
surface. In the overlapping shadows on the south pole, something
shimmers enticingly.
The reptile pushes up off the bottom, raising another cloud.
"Deborah Linden. The station is locked for your own
protection."
It glides into the cone of shadow beneath the object and sees a
bright shiny disk a meter across, facing down, held inside a circular
rim. The reptile looks up into it.
Something looks back.
Startled, the reptile twists down and away. The disk writhes in
the sudden turbulence.
A bubble. That's all it is. A pocket of gas, trapped underneath
the
тАФairlock.
The reptile stops. It knows that word. It even understands it,
somehow. Broca's not alone any more, something else is reaching
out from the temporal lobe and tapping in. Something up there
actually knows what Broca is talking about.
"Please enter the emergency shelter beneath the stationтАФ"
Still nervous, the reptile returns to the airlock. The air pocket
shines silver in the reflected light. A black wraith moves into view
within it, almost featureless except for two empty white spaces
where eyes should be. It reaches out to meet the reptile's
outstretched hand. Two sets of fingertips touch, fuse, disappear.
One arm is grafted onto its own reflection at the wrist. Fingers, on
the other side of the looking glass, touch metal.
"тАФlocked for your own protection. Deborah Linden."
It pulls back its hand, fascinated. Inside, forgotten parts are
stirring. Other parts, more familiar, try to send them away. The
wraith floats overhead, empty and untroubled.
6 Peter Watts

It draws its hand to its face, runs an index finger from one ear to
the tip of the jaw. A very long molecule, folded against itself,
unzips.
The wraith's smooth black face splits open a few centimeters;
what's underneath shows pale gray in the filtered light. The reptile
feels the familiar dimpling of its cheek in sudden cold.
It continues the motion, slashing its face from ear to ear. A great
smiling gash opens below the eyespots. Unzipped, a flap of black
membrane floats under its chin, anchored at the throat.
There's a pucker in the center of the skinned area. The reptile
moves its jaw; the pucker opens.
By now most of its teeth are gone. It swallowed some, spat
others out if they came loose when its face was unsealed. No
matter. Most of the things it eats these days are even softer than it
is. When the occasional mollusc or echinoderm proves too tough
or too large to swallow whole, there are always hands. Thumbs
still oppose.