"Ann Maxwell - Concord 3 - Name of a Shadow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxwell Ann)

 Kayle’s ironic laughter was almost painful. *Exactly, pattern-man. He was supposed to come to my
h’kel tonight. But you came instead. I wonder if that is an even trade?*
Ryth had no response for Kayle’s laughter. Restless Sharnn eyes measured the subtle signs of
disrepair in the black stone building facades and despair in the subdued faces lining Sima’s sunbrick
streets.
Vintra was tone on tone of purple, from lavender day to amethyst evening and dense violet-black
night ruled by a huge purple moon. Even Vintra’s sun did not banish the thousand shades of purple, for
Vintra wore a thick atmospheric shell that absorbed almost all but the longer wavelengths of light.
Because Malia, the Vintrans’ first world, turned beneath a sky of incredible clarity, colonists had had
difficulty adjusting to Vintra’s light. Everywhere on Vintra, noon and midnight, artificial illumination
glowed, but not enough, never enough to bleach Vintra’s purple sky.
If the colonists had difficulty enjoying Vintra’s extraordinary light, others did not. Vintra became
famous for her eerie violet skies. People from all over the Concord came to be transformed by lavender
light. They swam in lilac seas, climbed magenta mountains and ate heliotrope fruit whose sweet core was
yet another shade of purple.
In a high window above Ryth and Kayle, a suncaller preened and sang a few notes, as though
preparing its pre-dawn song. Ryth glanced up, but did not really see the bird. His mind had finally put into
words an anomaly that had been nagging at him: colonists invariably brought native flora and fauna to
their new homes, but nowhere in Sima had Ryth seen anything that did not fit seamlessly into Vintra’s
environment.
*Where are the Malian plants, the animals, the living links with Vintrans’ first home?* asked Ryth.
*Dead. The disparity in environments killed most. The few survivors were destroyed after the
Undeclared War, when all things Malian became anathema.*
Kayle sidestepped a group of revelers whose frayed robes displayed fuchsia slogans proclaiming the
joys of chemical psychosis. Though the five people were too uncoordinated to be dangerous, other such
groups had triggered twelve lethal riots and numberless street brawls in the few months Kayle had lived in
Sima. The groups were both symbol and accelerator of Vintra’s decline.
The streets narrowed when Ryth and Kayle approached the boundaries of Old Sima. Tourists rarely
came here, for there was neither entertainment nor beauty nor commerce within the crumbling sunbrick
structures. Most residents had abandoned the huddled kels after the third earthquake in the Year of the
Suncaller. Only the human debris of a failing society remained, as dangerous as venomous fruit.
The Street of the Purple Blossom was little more than an alley twisting between sagging rows of
lifeless kels. Only a few faded, cracked lightstrips alleviated the purple moonglow.
Ryth and Kayle walked carefully, twisting as the alley twisted, turning three-quarters of the way
around old buildings, spilling out onto two brightly lighted streets and then setting off in another direction
entirely, back into darkness. Further ahead, at the end of a long, shadowed tunnel, there was a glowing
sign in the shape of a whirlpool. Though most of the letters were shattered or dimmed by a crust of dirt,
enough remained to make out the word “Regret.”
No one could be seen in the pooling shadows beneath the sign, yet the street suggested hidden life,
breath held in anticipation of a moment that was long past.
*Wait for a twenty-count, then follow,* instructed Kayle. *If my shy Vintran is here, I don’t want
you to frighten him.*
Kayle closed out Ryth’s unspoken objections with a deft mental twist, then moved down the
rubble-strewn path with a speed and silence that belied the apparent clumsiness of his rolling Nendleti
gait. After a rapid count, Ryth moved lightly through the darkness, avoiding clots of debris. Once again
he tried mindspeech with Kayle, but the Nendleti’s mind was as closed as a stone.
The Sharnn’s pattern instinct clamored of danger. He looked at the alley ahead through narrowed
eyes. The incandescent violet moon made everything appear gigantic, menacing, but that was not what
had roused his instinct. There was something about the placement of debris that was no longer random.
Ahead, Kayle was pursuing a zigzag course, seeking clear ground where he could walk without sending