"Wolfe, Gene - The Urth Of The New Sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

to its stinging cold for a moment, panting, then threw
myself down the length of the bowsprit--for this final mast
was the bowsprit, of course--with all the strength of my
arms. I think that if I had crashed into the bow, I would not
have cared; I wanted nothing more, and nothing else, than
to touch the hull, anywhere and in any way.
I struck a staysail instead, and went sliding along its
immense silver surface. Surface indeed it was, and seemed
all surface, with less of body than a whisper, almost itself a
thing of light. It turned me, spun me, and sent me rolling
and tumbling like a wind-tossed leaf down to the deck.
Or rather, down to some deck, for I have never been
certain that the deck to which I returned was that which I
had left. I sprawled there trying to catch my breath, my
lame leg an agony; held, but almost not held, by the ship's
attraction.
My frantic panting never stopped or even slowed; and
after a hundred such gasps, I realized my cloak of air was
incapable of supporting my life much longer. I struggled to
rise. Half-suffocated though I was, it was almost too
easy--I nearly threw myself aloft again. A hatch was only a
chain away. I staggered to it, flung it wide with the last of
my strength, and shut it behind me. The inner door
seemed to open almost of itself.
At once my air freshened, as though some noble young
breeze had penetrated a fetid cell. To hasten the process, I
took off my necklace as I stepped out into the gangway,
then stood for a time breathing the cool, clean air, scarcely
conscious of where I was--save for the blessed knowledge
that I was inside the ship again, and not wandering wrack
beyond her sails.
The gangway was narrow and bright, painfully lit by blue
lights that crept slowly along its walls and ceiling, winking
and seemingly peering into the gangway without being any
part of it.
Nothing escapes my memory unless I am unconscious or
nearly so; I recalled every passage between my cabin and
the hatch that had let me out onto the deck, and this was
none of them. Most of them had been furnished like the
drawing rooms of chateaus, with pictures and polished
floors. The brown wood of the deck had given way here to a
green carpeting like grass that lifted minute teeth to grip
the soles of my boots, so that I felt as though the little
blue-green blades were blades indeed.
Thus I was faced with a decision, and one I did not
relish. The hatch was behind me. I could go out again and
search from deck to deck for my own part of the ship. Or I
could proceed along this broad passage and search from
inside. This alternative carried the immense disadvantage
that I might easily become lost in the interior. Yet would