"Daniel, Tony - A Dry, Quiet War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daniel Tony)

A Dry, Quiet War
by
Tony Daniel




I cannot tell you what it meant to me to see the two suns of Ferro set behind
the dry mountain east of my home. I had been away twelve billion years. I passed
my cabin, to the pump well and, taking a metal cup from where it hung from a
set-pin, I worked the handle three times. At first it creaked, and I believed it
was rusted tight, but then it loosened, and within fifteen pulls, I had a cup of
water.
Someone had kept the pump up. Someone had seen to the house and the land while I
was away at the war. For me, it had been fifteen years; I wasn't sure how long
it had been for Ferro. The water was tinged red and tasted of iron. Good. I
drank it down in a long draught, then put the cup back onto its hanger. When the
big sun, Hemingway, set, a slight breeze kicked up. Then Fitzgerald went down
and a cold, cloudless night spanked down onto the plateau. I shivered a little,
adjusted my internals, and stood motionless, waiting for the last of twilight to
pass, and the stars ­­ my stars ­­ to come out. Steiner, the planet that is
Ferro's evening star, was the first to emerge, low in the west, methane blue.
Then the constellations. Ngal. Gilgamesh. The Big Snake, half-coiled over the
southwestern horizon. There was no moon tonight. There was never a moon on
Ferro, and that was right.
After a time, I walked to the house, climbed up the porch and the house
recognized me and turned on the lights. I went inside. The place was dusty, the
furniture covered with sheets, but there were no signs of rats or jinjas, and
all seemed in repair. I sighed, blinked, tried to feel something. Too early,
probably. I started to take a covering from a chair, then let it be. I went to
the kitchen and checked the cupboard. An old malt whisky bottle, some dry
cereal, some spices. The spices had been my mother's, and I seldom used them
before I left for the end of time. I considered that the whisky might be
perfectly aged by now. But, as the saying goes on Ferro, we like a bit of food
with our drink, so I left the house and took the road to town, to Heidel.
It was a five mile walk, and though I could have enhanced and covered the ground
in ten minutes or so, I walked at a regular pace under my homeworld stars. The
road was dirt, of course, and my pant legs were dusted red when I stopped under
the outside light of Thredmartin's Pub. I took a last breath of cold air, then
went inside to the warm.
It was a good night at Thredmartin's. There were men and women gathered around
the fire hearth, usas and splices in the cold corners. The regulars were at the
bar, a couple of whom I recognized ­­ so old now, wizened like stored apples in
a barrel. I looked around for a particular face, but she was not there. A
jukebox sputtered some core-cloud deak and the air was thick with smoke and
conversation. Or was, until I walked in. Nobody turned to face me. Most of them
couldn't have seen me. But a signal passed and conversation fell to quiet
murmur. Somebody quickly killed the jukebox.
I blinked up an internals menu into my peripheral vision and adjusted to the
room's temperature. Then I went to the edge of the bar. The room got even more