"Walter Jon Williams - Surfacing (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter John)

"Why sorry?"


"I shouldn't have brought it up."


Anthony reached for his wine glass, stopped himself, put his hand down. "I'm curious."


She gave a little, apologetic laugh. "I may not go through with it."


"Why even think about it?"


Philana thought a long time before answering. "I've seen how the whales accept death. So graceful about it, so matter-of-factЧand they don't even have the myth of an afterlife to comfort them. If they get sick, they just beach themselves; and their friends try to keep them company. And when I try to give myself a reason for living beyond my natural span, I can't think of any. All I can think of is the whales."


Anthony saw the smokehouse in his mind, his father with his arms hanging, the fingers touching the dusty floor. "Death isn't nice."


Philana gave him a skeletal grin and took a quick drink of wine. "With any luck," she said, "death isn't anything at all."


Wind chilled the night, pouring upon the town through a slot in the island's volcanic cone. Anthony watched a streamlined head as it moved in the dark windwashed water of the marina. The head belonged to a coldblooded amphibian that lived in the warm surf of the Las Madres; the creature was known misleadingly as a Las Madres seal. They had little fear of humanity and were curious about the new arrivals. Anthony stamped a foot on the slip. Planks boomed. The seal's head disappeared with a soft splash. Ripples spread in starlight, and Anthony smiled.


Philana had stepped into her yacht for a sweater. She returned, cast a glance at the water, saw nothing.


"Can I listen to the Dwellers?" she asked. "I'd like to hear them."


Despite his resentment at her imposition, Anthony appreciated her being careful with the term: she hadn't called them Leviathans once. He thought about her request, could think of no reason to refuse save his own stubborn reluctance. The Dweller sounds were just background noise, meaningless to her. He stepped onto his boat, took a cube from his pocket, put it in the trapdoor, pressed the PLAY button. Dweller murmurings filled the cockpit. Philana stepped from the dock to the boat. She shivered in the wind. Her eyes were pools of dark wonder.


"So different."


16 ' Wal&r >^>


"Are you surprised?" Х '"' Х '


"I suppose not."


"This isn't really what they sound like. What you're hearing is a computer-generated metaphor for the real thing. Much of their communication is subsonic, and the computer raises the sound to levels we can hear, and also speeds it up. Sometimes the Dwellers take three or four minutes to speak what seems to be a simple sentence."