"Bernard Wolfe - Limbo '90" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Bernard)

'The queer-limbs again?'

'Yes, the queer-limbs. Yes, forty, fifty. And a large ship, most peculiar shape.'

'They were white?'

'White like the others, speak English like the others. They called to the fishermen but our boys pretended
they did not understand and went away.'

Martine raised his hand and rubbed his eyes wearily. He thought: I know why he's telling me this in
English. This is the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to him, he's got to push it away from him, by
talking about it in a remote language he hopes to make the whole thing remote. He always switches to
English when we talk about orgasm, too.
'So,' Martine said. 'This makes the seventh time they've been seen in, let's see, five weeks or so. Each
time they come a little closer.'

'More news,' Ubu said. 'Over an hour ago I stopped at the clearing and looked out at the sea. I am not
all sure but I thought I saw something moving far away to the west, where the water ends.'

'Sounds to me as though they've got some base of operations around the Mozambique waters. They
seem to be covering the whole area pretty systematically, they're obviously looking for something. Christ
knows what.'

'Maybe - for you?'

Martine stared at the chief in astonishment. 'That's crazy, old man, in over eighteen years they've
forgotten all about me.'

The door of the operating-room swung open and Rambo came out, wheeling Moaga. Ubu watched as
the bed rolled down the corridor, then he said hesitantly, 'You think of something to do?'

Martine laughed; these gentle people were good for everything but crisis. Then he put his arm around his
friend's shoulders and began to walk with him down the corridor. 'Not exactly, but I'm not going to go up
to them with my hands held out and say, "Peace to all." A guy can get himself very dead that way.'

'You suggest we hide then?'

'No good, they'd find the village and know we were around somewhere. We've got to face them, I
guess, but it's not easy to work out a way of dealing with them. All we know so far is that these people,
creatures, monsters, whatever they are, are exactly like us - except that where their arms and legs ought
to be they've got tubular appliances that you can see through and that flicker as though they were filled
with fireflies. And they speak English, American.'

'That bothers you?'

'As much as anything,' Martine admitted. For eighteen and a half years, he had to confess to himself, he
hadn't thought too much about his home and the people there, hadn't even been much concerned to
know whether there were any people left there. He'd had so little interest in the past that when his plane
cracked up he'd saved all the machinery and surgical equipment and energy capsules but hadn't hesitated