[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
older hands said, was supplied by Lamarckia itself.
Shankara led us through thick xyla doors into cool air, a small, dark room at the very rear, the
sounds of the kitchen coming from someplace to my left. The rum buzzed in me, a novel and not
unpleasant sensation.
I sat with my shipmates before a low stage daubed with tarry black paint. A short, slender woman
with long brown hair and a fixed gaze, who some said was the owner, came on stage and stood beneath
a bright spot. Her voice was deep and sandy and she did not look at her audience.
Some chewed mat fiber, tasteless but scented of sweetness and garlic and filled with a mild
stimulant, and others drank more rum. The young, round-faced female A.B. sat beside Shankara and
balanced a plate of indifferent gruel on her lap, eating slowly, staring up with doubtful but wide eyes.
"We've all lived our lives in the shadow of the silva," the woman said in a breathless monotone.
"We've been sampled, and the silva knows us. But can we ever know the silva? There are _curiosities ...
peculiarities._ The zones, rich with life, do they resent us? Do they notice our existence? Can they truly
see and think, or are they blind as stones? Sometimes we feel we are wrapped in the depths of a
heedless mother, and we cry out in our sleep like children. There are mysteries no one will ever fathom.
Absurd mysteries, unexplainable phenomena. How many have heard stories?"
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A few hands rose, then others, taking encouragement in numbers.
"_I've_ heard stories," the woman continued, nodding to herself, her tone confessional, and then
darkly mysterious. "Stories not to be believed. Terrifying, strange, but not... _surprising._ Does anything
surprise us on this, our chosen world?" An edge of weary resentment in her words now, eyebrow raised,
a flip of the long brown hair.
I sat with my hands gripping the sides of the seat of my chair. A fog of unreality stole over me,
caused not by the rum, but by the sour animal smell of bodies in the close room, the rough lizboo
between my fingers, the floor strewn with bits of dried parasol leaf to soak up spilled liquid. The cloying
smell of mat drifted through the air, sweet and garlicky.
"When my husband vanished in Eastern Tasman, hunting curiosities in Baker's Zone, I took off to
search for him. Long weeks and months by boat, then through thick swamp, over tall mountains -- "
"Get on with it," grumbled a bearded man near me, swaying slightly in his chair, jaw working a clump
of mat.
"To find... _something._"
"Something!" the crowd shouted in derision. "Show us!"
"Not pickled," the woman said, leaning toward the crowd, hands sweeping out, fingers pointing,
enjoying her own melodrama. "Not stuck in a bottle."
"Not like us," a man shouted, and the crowd laughed at itself, in a perverse humor.
"Not in a bottle. Alive. _Alive and away from its land, and so very lonely,_" she chanted.
"Like us," several voices sang out. Nervous laughter now.
"Strange," the woman said, "to stare into what it uses for its eyes, and wonder ... Does it think?
Does it miss its home, thousands of kilometers away? Does it miss its _queen,_ whom no one has ever
seen? Was I cruel, to bring it here ... Was I seeking to avenge my husband?"
"Be cruel, be _cruel,_" a drunken man, not of our ship, shouted from the front.
_This is the dream, Lenk' s dream,_ I thought. _Get his people away from Thistledown, from people
no longer shaped like people, from the blasphemous Way... _
The rum fogged and distorted and was no longer pleasant. I set my glass down, half empty, and
drank no more.
Two brawny men in aprons rolled a large crate onto the stage. Liquid slopped from between the
boards and ran thick and brown over the black tarry floor, lapping up against the raised edge, the
_fiddle_ I thought, testing out a nautical term, like old port spilled on a ship's table. Within the crate, a
sigh, a clatter of sticks or branches.
"What possible use to its zone, to its queen?" the woman asked dreamily. "Such a monster, perhaps
no use at all. A _sport,_ a dream gone bad, a nightmare. The silva dreams and twitches in its sleep. We
hear it, breathing its black breath across the land, over our heads, in our skin and hair. We cut its trees,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
harvest its leaves, fence its helpers and attendants ... Will it not someday know what we are, and hate us?
What will it make next? Perhaps this is a _test._ Something that will eventually grow large, and attack ...
Let's take a look, and perhaps see _our future..._"
"Naah," a man sneered from the rear of the room, waving a hand. He stood and pushed through the
thick xyla door. The woman on stage watched him leave with sad, tired eyes. The cool air settled again.
The woman reached out for the crate, challenging the audience with a piercing stare... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
older hands said, was supplied by Lamarckia itself.
Shankara led us through thick xyla doors into cool air, a small, dark room at the very rear, the
sounds of the kitchen coming from someplace to my left. The rum buzzed in me, a novel and not
unpleasant sensation.
I sat with my shipmates before a low stage daubed with tarry black paint. A short, slender woman
with long brown hair and a fixed gaze, who some said was the owner, came on stage and stood beneath
a bright spot. Her voice was deep and sandy and she did not look at her audience.
Some chewed mat fiber, tasteless but scented of sweetness and garlic and filled with a mild
stimulant, and others drank more rum. The young, round-faced female A.B. sat beside Shankara and
balanced a plate of indifferent gruel on her lap, eating slowly, staring up with doubtful but wide eyes.
"We've all lived our lives in the shadow of the silva," the woman said in a breathless monotone.
"We've been sampled, and the silva knows us. But can we ever know the silva? There are _curiosities ...
peculiarities._ The zones, rich with life, do they resent us? Do they notice our existence? Can they truly
see and think, or are they blind as stones? Sometimes we feel we are wrapped in the depths of a
heedless mother, and we cry out in our sleep like children. There are mysteries no one will ever fathom.
Absurd mysteries, unexplainable phenomena. How many have heard stories?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
A few hands rose, then others, taking encouragement in numbers.
"_I've_ heard stories," the woman continued, nodding to herself, her tone confessional, and then
darkly mysterious. "Stories not to be believed. Terrifying, strange, but not... _surprising._ Does anything
surprise us on this, our chosen world?" An edge of weary resentment in her words now, eyebrow raised,
a flip of the long brown hair.
I sat with my hands gripping the sides of the seat of my chair. A fog of unreality stole over me,
caused not by the rum, but by the sour animal smell of bodies in the close room, the rough lizboo
between my fingers, the floor strewn with bits of dried parasol leaf to soak up spilled liquid. The cloying
smell of mat drifted through the air, sweet and garlicky.
"When my husband vanished in Eastern Tasman, hunting curiosities in Baker's Zone, I took off to
search for him. Long weeks and months by boat, then through thick swamp, over tall mountains -- "
"Get on with it," grumbled a bearded man near me, swaying slightly in his chair, jaw working a clump
of mat.
"To find... _something._"
"Something!" the crowd shouted in derision. "Show us!"
"Not pickled," the woman said, leaning toward the crowd, hands sweeping out, fingers pointing,
enjoying her own melodrama. "Not stuck in a bottle."
"Not like us," a man shouted, and the crowd laughed at itself, in a perverse humor.
"Not in a bottle. Alive. _Alive and away from its land, and so very lonely,_" she chanted.
"Like us," several voices sang out. Nervous laughter now.
"Strange," the woman said, "to stare into what it uses for its eyes, and wonder ... Does it think?
Does it miss its home, thousands of kilometers away? Does it miss its _queen,_ whom no one has ever
seen? Was I cruel, to bring it here ... Was I seeking to avenge my husband?"
"Be cruel, be _cruel,_" a drunken man, not of our ship, shouted from the front.
_This is the dream, Lenk' s dream,_ I thought. _Get his people away from Thistledown, from people
no longer shaped like people, from the blasphemous Way... _
The rum fogged and distorted and was no longer pleasant. I set my glass down, half empty, and
drank no more.
Two brawny men in aprons rolled a large crate onto the stage. Liquid slopped from between the
boards and ran thick and brown over the black tarry floor, lapping up against the raised edge, the
_fiddle_ I thought, testing out a nautical term, like old port spilled on a ship's table. Within the crate, a
sigh, a clatter of sticks or branches.
"What possible use to its zone, to its queen?" the woman asked dreamily. "Such a monster, perhaps
no use at all. A _sport,_ a dream gone bad, a nightmare. The silva dreams and twitches in its sleep. We
hear it, breathing its black breath across the land, over our heads, in our skin and hair. We cut its trees,
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
harvest its leaves, fence its helpers and attendants ... Will it not someday know what we are, and hate us?
What will it make next? Perhaps this is a _test._ Something that will eventually grow large, and attack ...
Let's take a look, and perhaps see _our future..._"
"Naah," a man sneered from the rear of the room, waving a hand. He stood and pushed through the
thick xyla door. The woman on stage watched him leave with sad, tired eyes. The cool air settled again.
The woman reached out for the crate, challenging the audience with a piercing stare... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]