"Barry Longyear - Adagio (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

"this thing brought us pain
and death"
"we must obey"
"this thing now wants us to kill"
"Forrest is still torturing the rocks." It was Lady Name's voice.
Tobias buried his head more deeply into his pillow. "If you don't get out of here, I'll rip out
your spine and strangle you with it."
No footsteps moving away. He could feel the woman's hurt gaze on his back. The flimsy shelter
almost radiated with terminal sulk. Tobias chased away his nightmares and rolled over on his cot.
"Go away, Lady. Take up a hobby, go play with yourself, anything. Anything but tattling on
Forrest. I don't find forty-year-old children amusing."
"I am not tattling, Tobias. I am reporting. One of your men is torturing the rocks. Those rocks
are alive."
"Lady, first, they are not my men. If anyone is in charge, it's Forrest. Second, I don't care
about the rocks. I really don't. My only problem is keeping sane until someone picks up our
signal. Rescue, Lady. Think rescue."
"No one will pick up the signal. Forrest told you it can't get through the radiation."
"You don't know that. Forrest doesn't know that for certain. There's a chance."
She stared at him for a moment, almost looking sane, then nodded toward the shack's doorway. "What
are you going to do about Forrest?"
He turned his back and burrowed into his pillow. "Nothing."
Footsteps, finally. .
The beacon signal would get through. It had to. Then a curious thought entered his mind. He felt
he should be rooting for the beacon signal's success. A moral thing. What generations of humans
would say was the thing he should be doing right then. The curious thought was that he didn't
really care whether the signal got through or not.
soon the dark"
"soon we kill"
"it is the wish of this thing"
Mantchee rode half-hidden by the horizon. Tobias entered the main shelter, the red glare of the
weeklong sunset casting the interior of the dome in blood.
They were all seated around the low table. Lady Name, as usual, was watching Forrest. Forrest was
entertaining himself with his own thoughts while Tillson struggled, probably uncomfortable with
the unfamiliar feeling of wearing clothes. Nelson Cage was heavily into a wiring diagram, the
symbols and the problems their relationships represented providing as much entertainment for him
as the rocks did for Forrest.
As he pulled a ration pack from the dispenser, Tobias heard Cage announce. "I have the computer
working."
Tillson: "God doesn't like computers."
Lady Name: "What are you going to kill time with now, Cage?"
Forrest: "Break it, Cage. Break the computer and fix it again."
Cage's face flushed red. "I don't know what's wrong with you people. After five months of hard
work I've managed to-"
Forrest leaned forward holding a finger before his lips. "Shhh." He brought his finger down and
smiled. "No one cares, Cage."


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