"Ken MacLeod - The Highway Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

warning labels and the smoke detectors and the CCTV cameras. Or it was
the hard-drinking locals and the smug incomers. Or maybe the yammering
telly, and the horrible thick air of the place, smelling of. sweat and scent and
food and booze. The yellow light and the blanketed windows. That and the
whole shit deal of being a lagger.

Farhad still looked puzzled. “Immorality?”

“Aye, that’s it,” said Murdo. “Immorality and drunkenness.”

At closing time we stepped out into a black night full of stars. No
many lights to compete with here. From the hills to the south, across the
loch, a faint spark rose and climbed fast up the sky. Almost overhead it
flared bright for a second or two and then winked out.

“What was that?” I asked.

“The Space Station,” said Murdo.

“It was abandoned,” I said.

“Yes,” said Murdo, “but it’s still up there.”

“The Chinks put a man on Mars before the war,” said Euan.

“Two men and a woman,” Farhad said, opening the van door.

“Maybe they’re still up there and all,” Murdo said.

“Aye,” I said. “With a soldering iron and a sewing machine. Making
stuff to sell us after the war.”

“ ‘After the war,’ “ Euan mocked.

“When I was a wee boy,” said Murdo, “I heard people saying that.”

When we got back to the site I stopped by the computer and applied
for a day off. Nothing came up until Sunday, so I took that.

****

VII
 THE BLACK HILLS

The site was quiet on Sunday, though I doubt many went to church. I
walked out the gate on a fine crisp morning. Blue sky, blue loch. Flat calm.
There was a line or two running in my head from one of my father’s old
songs: Take me back to the black hills, the black hills of…

The black hills of Lochcarron. Oh aye.