"Gene Wolfe - Endangered Species" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

it? Would ye like to see me as a tiny green man wi' horns like
a snail's? I can do that too."
"Don't bother."

"All right, I won't, though 'tis a good shape. A man can
take it and be whatever he wants, one o' the People o' Peace
or a bit o' a man from Mars. I've used it for both, and there's
nothin' better."

"You took Lissy," Tim said.

"And how would ye be knowin' that?"

"I thought she'd drowned."

"Did ye now?"

"And that this ship-or whatever it is-was just a sign, an
omen. I talked to a policeman and he as good as told me,
but I didn't really think about what he said until last nieht,
when I was trying to sleep."

"Is it a dream yer havin'? Did ye ever think on that?"

"If it's a dream, it's still real," Tim said doggedly. "And
anyway, I saw your ship when I was awake, yesterday and
the day before."

"Or yer dreamin' now ye did. But go on wi' it."

"He said Lissy couldn't have been abducted because I was
in the same bed, and that she'd gone out for a swim in the
morning and drowned. But she could have been abducted,
if she had gone out for the swim first. If someone had come
for her with a boat. And she wouldn't have drowned, because
she didn't swim good enough to drown. She was afraid of
the water. We went in yesterday, and even with me there,
she would hardly go in over her knees. So it was you."

"Yer right, ye know," Daniel said. He formed a little steeple
of his fingers. " 'Twas us."

Tim was recalling stories that had been read to him when
he was a child. "Fairies steal babies, don't they? And brides.
Is that why you do it? So we'll think that's who you are?"

"Bless ye, 'tis true," Daniel told him. " Tis the Fair Folk
we are. The jinn o' the desert too, and the saucer riders ye
say ye credit, and forty score more. Would ye be likin' to see
me wi' me goatskin breeches and me panpipe?" He chuckled.