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

stranger heaved at the windlass, and the boom crept back.

To starboard, a high-pooped thalamegus made its way up
the river, glittering in the sunlight like a scarab, all gilding
and lapis lazuli. The wind was fair for it now, and as they
watched (Eata with one eye to their own sail) the lateen
yards dipped on its stubby masts, then lifted again trailing
wide triangles of roseate silk. The long sweeps shrunk and
vanished.

"They've been down seeing the sights," Eata told the
stranger. "It's safe enough by day, if you've got a couple
of young fellows with swords aboard and rowers you can
trust."

"What is that up there?" The stranger pointed beyond
the thalamegus to a hill crowned with spires. "It looks out
of place."

"They call it the Old Citadel," Eata said. "I don't know
much about it."

"Is that where the Autarch comes from?"

"So some say."

Urth was looking the sun nearly full in the face now, and
the wind had died to a mere whisper. The patched brown
mainsail flapped, then filled, then napped again.

The stranger sat on the gunnel for a moment, his booted
feet hanging over the side and almost touching the smooth
water, then swung them back onto the deck again as though
he were fearful of falling overboard. "You can almost imag-
ine them going up, can't you?" he said. "Just taking off with
a silver shout and leaving this world behind."

"No," Eata told him. "I can't."

"That's what they're supposed to do, at the end of time.
I read about it someplace."

"Paper's dangerous," Eata said. "It's killed a lot more men
than steel."

Their boat was moving hardly faster than the sluggish
current. A flyer passed overhead as swiftly and silently as
a dart from the hand of a giant and vanished into a white
summer cloud, only to reappear shrunk nearly to invisi-
bility, one additional spark among the day-dimmed stars.