"Connie Willis - The Sidon in the Mirror" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

THE SIDON IN THE MIRROR
by Connie Willis
We are near the spiraldown. I cannot see the mooring lights, and there are no landmarks on Paylay, but I
remember how the lights of JewellтАЩs abbey looked from here: a thin, disjointed string of Christmas tree
lights, red and green and gold. Closer in you can see the red line under the buildings, and you think you
are seeing the heat of Paylay, but it is only the reflection of the lights off the ground and the metalpaper
undersides of JewellтАЩs and the gaming house.

тАЬYou kinтАЩt see the heat,тАЭ Jewell said on our way in from the down, тАЬbut you feel it. Your shoes all right?тАЭ

My shoes were fine, but they were clumsy to walk in. I would have fallen over in them at home, but here
the heavier gravity almost clamped them to the ground. They had six-inch plastic soles cut into a
latticework as fragile-looking as the mooring tower, but they were sturdier than they looked, and they
were not letting any heat get through. I wasnтАЩt feeling anything at all, and halfway to JewellтАЩs I knelt and
felt the sooty ground. It felt warm but not so hot as I had thought it would be, walking on a star.

тАЬLeave your hand there a minute,тАЭ Jewell said. I did, and then jerked my soot-covered hand up and put it
in my mouth.

тАЬGits hot fast, dinтАЩt it?тАЭ she said. тАЬA tapper kidd fall down out here or kimm out with no shoes on and die
inside of an hour of heatstroke. ThatтАЩs why I thought I bitter come out and wilcome you to Paylay. ThatтАЩs
what they call this tapped-out star. YouтАЩre sipposed to be able to pick up minny laying on the ground.
You kinтАЩt. You have to drill a tap and build a comprissor around it and hope to Gid you donтАЩt blow
yoursilf up while youтАЩre doing it.тАЬ

What she did not say, in the high sqeuaky voice we both had from the helium in the air, was that she had
waited over two hours for me by the downтАЩs plastic mooring tower and that the bottoms of her feet were
frying in the towering shoes. The plastic is not a very good insulator. Open metal ribs would work far
better to dissipate the heat that wells up through the thin crust of Paylay, but they canтАЩt allow any more
metal here than is absolutely necessary, not with the hydrogen and oxygen ready to explode at the
slightest spark.

The downpilot should have taken any potential fire-starters and metal I had away from me before he let
me off the spiraldown, but Jewell had interrupted him before he could ask me what I had. тАЬDoubletap it,
will you?тАЭ she said. тАЬI want to git back before the nixt shift. You were an hour late.тАЭ

тАЬSorry, Jewell,тАЭ the pilot said. тАЬWe hit thirty percent almost a kilometer up and had to go into a Fermat.тАЭ
He looked down again at the piece of paper in his hand. тАЬThe following items are contraband. Unlawful
possession can result in expulsion from Paylay. Do you have any: sonic fires, electromags, matchesтАжтАЭ

Jewell took a step forward and put her foot down like she was afraid the ground would give way.

тАЬIv course he dinтАЩt. HeтАЩs a pianoboard player.тАЭ

The pilot laughed and said, тАЬOkay, Jewell, take him,тАЭ and she grabbed up my tote and walked me back
to St. Pierre. She asked about my uncle, and she told me about the abbey and the girls and how sheтАЩd
given them all house names of jewels because of her name. She told me how Taber, who ran the gaming
house next door to her abbey, had christened the little string of buildings we could see in the distance St.
Pierre after the patron saint of tappers, and all the time the bottoms of her feet fried like cooking meat
and she never said a word.