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

yards away, one window golden with sunshine that had en-
tered from the other side, the walls in shadow. The red
Triumph gleamed beside the road.

At the top of a small dune he turned and looked back out
to sea. A black freighter with a red and white stack was visible
a mile or two out, but it was only a freighter. For a moment
he felt a kind of regret, a longing for a part of his life that
he had hated but that was now gone forever. I will never be
able to tell her what happened, he thought. And then, Yes
I will, if only I let her think I'm just making it up. And then,
No wonder so many people tell so many stories. Goodbye to
all that.

The steps creaked under his weight, and he wiped the sand
from his feet on the coco mat. Lissy was in bed. When she
heard the door open she sat up, then drew up the sheet to
cover her breasts.

"Big Tim," she said. "You did come. Tim and I were hoping
you would."

When he did not answer, she added, "He's out having a
swim, I think. He should be around in a minute."

And when he still said nothing. "We're-Tim and I-we're
going to be married."
***
20
The Map

"The Map" copyright 1984 by Gene Wolfe; first appeared in Light Years
and Dark edited by Michael Bishop.
***



ON the night before, he had forgotten all his plans and
fought, half blinded by his blood after Laetus broke the ewer
over his head. Perhaps that was for the best.

And yet if they had not taken his knife while he slept, he
might have killed them both.

"Master Gurloes will be angry." That was what they
used to say to terrify one another into doing well. Severian
would have been angry too, to be sure, and Severian had
beaten him more than once. He spat out clotted blood.
Beaten him worse than Laetus and Syntyche had last night.
Severian had been captain of apprentices in the year before