"Gardner Dozois - A Cat Horror Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

often see it, after dark. Her fur is like ice, like frost on a winter morning and her dead
eyes give back no light . . .”

The moon was high and full above them now, and it seemed to tug on their
souls, as if it would suck them out through the tops of their heads and up into the
mysterious depths of the night sky, where they would fall forever through the dark.

“Yes!” a tom shrieked. “Yes! I have seen it! Its feet leave no mark on the
grass when it walks, and its eyes are like deep pools of black water! And one night,
when everyone slept except me, I could hear it outside, scratching on the door,
trying to get in —”

A huge Dead Thing went by overhead, roaring, a blazing light flying through
the night sky like a terrible gazing eye, seeming to pass almost close enough to
touch, and the People crouched low on the hillside until the monster had rumbled
away into distance and was gone.

In the sudden shocked silence, Caeser said, almost with satisfaction, “The
Ghostway is around us, always.” And the People shivered deliciously, and moved
closer in the night, and told their stories until the moon went down, as they have for
a million generations, and as they will for a million more, until the Earth goes cold,
and even the People are forgotten.

1.In the True Tongue, the word we render here as “human” is more closely
expressed as “Bad-Smelling.
Foodgiver-and-Lair-Mate-Who-Speaks-Loudly-and-Moves-Slowly,” although
that also is a loose translation, and subject to variation in local dialects.
 1.This was the name his humans had given him, of course. The True Names of
the People are impossible to reproduce here, as the verbal element is only a
small part of each name, and perhaps the most insignificant part, the really
vital information being conveyed by body posture, the speed and stiffness of
movement, the position of the ears and tail, the pattern of ruffling or twitching
of the fur, and, most importantly, the hot rich smell of the anus, and the
lingering, eloquent tang of urine.


1.The human word “demons,” of course, has associations with Christian
theology that the actual phrase in the True Tongue does not share, but it will
serve to give an impression of something both malefic and enigmatic, an
incomprehensible force that kills you with terrifying casualness, for
unknowable reasons — if for any reason at all; this is more vivid in the speech
of the People.

1.“False Skin “is about the closest you can come to this in the True Tongue,
which doesn’t allow for much precision in distinguishing between one sort of
thing made of cloth or fabric and another; some dialects will allow reference to
blankets as “False-Skins-That-You-Sleep-On. “All this is as nothing
compared to conveying some sense of what the human word “river” actually
translates to in the True Tongue — the literal “Moving Big Water” does little
to convey the sense of horror and supernatural dread with which the People