"Paul J. McAuley - Sea Change, with Monsters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Paul J. McAuley

Paul J. McAuley is currently working on a very long novel set ten
million years in the future. The first volume, Child of the River, was recently
published by Avon, and the second, Ancients of Days, is forthcoming. In
his latest novella, settlement of our solar system has inevitably brought
alterations to environments like Jupiter's frozen Europa. In turn, these alien
vistas have had an effect on us. Both transformations are chillingly explored
in…


SEA
CHANGE,
WITH
MONSTERS



S
he made it clear that she was taking the job as a favor.
Vlad Simonov pretended to be slighted by her reluctance. He said, “But
Indira, what’s the problem? It’s a fantastic job, and it’s not as if you are working.”
“I have been working,” Indira said. “Now I’m resting.”
She had spent two weeks supervising the clearance of an infestation of urchins
at the perimeter of a farm collective. It had been difficult, dangerous, tiring work, and
she had nearly been killed in almost exactly the same way she had nearly been killed
on her first job, when she hadn’t really known what she had been doing. She had
come full circle. She was beginning to be-lieve that she had killed enough monsters.
Vlad snapped his fingers and leaned close to the camera of his phone. “Af-ter
that picayune little job, you need to rest? That kind of thing, I do as an ex-ercise. I
do it for relaxation! I do it in my sleep, after a proper day’s work.. Lis-ten, Indira, I
would take this job myself, it is so good, except already I am committed to three
others. So I give it to you. With my usual commission of course, but the terms are
so generous you will not notice the little I have kept to take home to feed my
children.”
Vlad’s restless, goodhumored energy was apparent even over the phone.
Indira laughed.
 He said chidingly, “Indira, Indira. You are getting old. You are getting bored.
Urchins, spinners, makos, they’re all the same to you. Routine, rou-tine, routine. It
hurts me to see you like this. So, I put some pep in your life. To make you think
again. To make you love life. Say yes. You will have fun, I promise.”
“Vlad…we are all getting old.”
“Not the monsters. While you sit around in your nice, warm, comfortable apt,
the monsters are swimming in the cold and the dark, pumping sulfides, getting
strong. Indira, this is a very exciting job, and the people who commis-sion it are
some kind of funny monks who know nothing about the value of money. You will be
rich, even after my tiny percentage is removed. They claim it is a dragon, Indira. You
have never hunted a dragon, but I know you can do it. That is why I ask only you.”
“And that’s why I’m taking it as a favor to you, Vlad. Because I know no one
else will do it.”