"K. D. Wentworth - Embians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

The displays begin early, while the air still is suffused with light the shade
of dark honey and the embians are barely visible.

Plum. Starburst of amber. Ochre.

Darkness.

Watching the embians is the only time she feels real anymore. Shayna rakes her
fingers back through sweat-sheened hair. If only they could install fans or
air-conditioning in the blind, she would stay here all night, every night, but
the embians have preternaturally sharp hearing. Conversation does not bother
them, but the least mechanical sound drives them to perform their dazzling
mating rituals elsewhere in the rain forest's steamy privacy. The night-cam and
audio recorder, small as they are, have to be heavily shielded. Shielding the
entire blind would be inordinately expensive, and the university that funded
them subscribes to the long tradition that fieldwork should be difficult and
uncomfortable.

She clicks on the sound recorder and sets it on the floor between her booted
feet. The other camp stool remains empty. She envisions her partner with a
broken leg, or perhaps a concussion, lying helpless and in pain among the trees'
exposed, pulsating roots so that Shayna would be forced to trace her by the
signal of her personal transponder. She sighs. Mae wouldn't be so distant, so
self-sufficient then. The wire screen creaks as she leans back and wonders what
it would be like if people spent half as much time learning about each other as
they do trying to understand the embians.

Aquamarine.

Darkness.

A trill pierces the silence, full of loss and longing. What do they seek from
each other, she wonders. A lifetime of commitment, or only a moment of ecstatic
union? Do they raise their young together, or abandon them to survive on their
own? Why do the males seek each other out at times, and then court females at
others? So little is known of them except these dazzling displays of light.

Flash of peach. Intensifies to orange. Shot through with yellow lines that bleed
into each other.

Darkness...darkness.

Mae pulls herself up the ladder, closes the trap door and drops, panting, onto
her stool. "Sorry I'm late." She clicks off the lantern. She smells faintly of
sweat, overlaid by a heavy floral soap, jasmine. "I was so filthy that I
showered when I got back, but now I'm wringing wet again." She laughs ruefully.

Indigo. Mottled with gray. Fades....