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

live-is just a sort of border on it."

"Do you know a place where three broad streets come
together?"

"Half a dozen, maybe more."

"The southernmost, I would think."

"I can take you to the farthest south I know," Eata said.

"I'm not saying that's the farthest south there is."

"We'll start there then."

"Be night by the time we get there," Eata told him. "The
next day will be another asimi."

The stranger nodded. "We're not even to the ruined part
yet?"

Eata gestured. "See those clothes? Washing on a line. Peo-
ple here have enough to eat, so they can have two or three
shirts, maybe. Farther south you won't see that-a person
with only one shirt or one shift doesn't wash it much, but
you'll see cooksmoke. Farther still, and you won't even see
that. That's the dead city, and people there don't light any
fires because of what the smoke might bring down on them.
Omophagists is what my old teacher called them. It means
those that have their meat raw."

The stranger stared across the water at the lines and their
rags. The wind ruffled his hair, and the tattered shirts and
skirts waved at him like crowds of poor, shy children who
feared he would not wave back. At last he said, "Even if
the Autarch won't protect them, they could band together
and protect each other."

"It's each other they're afraid of. They live-such as
they do live-by sieving the old city, a finer screen every
year. Every man steals from his neighbor when he can and
kills him if he makes a good find. It doesn't have to be
much. A knife with a silver handle-that would be a good
find."

After a moment, the stranger looked down at the silver
mountings of his dagger.

"I believe we might take a bit of a closer reach here,"
Eata told him. "There's a meander coming up." The