"Ursula K. Leguin - The Flyers Of Gy - An Interplanetary Tale" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

"I swooped around the marketplace for a while, staying low, learning how to
turn and bank, and how to use my tailfeathers. It comes pretty natural, you
feel what to do, the air tells you … but the people down below were looking
up, and ducking when I banked too steep, or stalled … I didn't care. I flew
for over an hour, till after dark, after all the people had gone. I'd got way
up over the roofs by then. But I realized my wing muscles were getting tired
and I'd better come down. But that was hard. I mean, landing was hard because
I didn't know how to land. I came down like a sack of rocks, bam! Nearly
sprained my ankle, and the soles of my feet stung like fire. If anybody saw it
they must have laughed. But I didn't care. It was just hard to be on the
ground. I hated be down. Limping home, dragging my wings that weren't any good
here, feeling weak, feeling heavy.

"It took me quite a while to get home, and Mama came in just a little after
me. She looked at me and said, 'You've been out,' and I said, 'I flew, Mama,'
and she burst into tears.

"I was sorry for her but there wasn't much I could say.

She didn't even ask me if I was going to go on flying. She knew I would. I
don't understand the people who have wings and don't use them. I suppose
they're interested in having a career. Maybe they were already in love with
somebody on the ground. But it seems … I don't know. I can't really understand
it. Wanting to stay down. Choosing not to fly. Wingless people can't help it,
it's not their fault they're grounded. But if you have wings …

"Of course they may be afraid of wing failure. Wing failure doesn't happen if
you don't fly. Of course it doesn't happen, how can it? How can something fail
that never worked?

"I suppose being safe is important to some people. They have a family or
commitments or a job or something that makes it important. I don't know. You'd
have to talk to one of them. I'm a flyer."




·····


I asked Ardiadia how he made his living. Like many flyers, he worked part-time
for the postal service. He mostly carried governmental correspondence and
despatches on long flights, even overseas. Evidently he was considered a
gifted and reliable employee. For particularly important despatches, he told
me that two flyers were always sent, in case one suffered wing failure.
He was thirty-two. I asked him if he was married, and he told me that flyers
never married; they considered it, he said, beneath them—"Affairs on the
wing," he said, with a slight smile. I asked if the affairs were always with
other flyers, and he said, "Oh, yes, of course," unintentionally revealing his
surprise or disgust at the idea of making love to a non-flyer. His manners