"Alastair Reynolds - Revelation Space 04 - Absolution Gap" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Alastair)

that was still running and some small conch pieces on the table.
“There’s no telling how long it’s been since he was last here,” Vasko said.
Scorpio shook his head. “He hasn’t been away for very long, probably
not more than an hour or two.”
Vasko looked around, searching for whatever piece of evidence Scorpio
had already spotted. He wasn’t going to find it: pigs had long ago learned
that the acute sense of smell they had inherited from their ancestors was
not something shared by baseline humans. They had also
learned—painfully—that humans did not care to be reminded of this.
They stepped outside again, sealing the inner door as they had found it.
“What now?” Vasko asked.
Scorpio snapped a spare communications bracelet from one wrist and
handed it to Vasko. It had already been assigned a secure frequency, so
there was no danger of anyone on the other islands listening in. “You know
how to use one of these things?”
“I’ll manage. Anything in particular you want me to do with it?”
“Yes. You’re going to wait here until I get back. I expect to have Clavain
with me when I return. But in the event he finds you first, you’re to tell
him who you are and who sent you. Then you call me and ask Clavain if
he’d like to talk to me. Got that?”
“And if you don’t come back?”
“You’d better call Blood.”
Vasko fingered the bracelet. “You sound a bit worried about his state of
mind, sir. Do you think he might be dangerous?”
“I hope so,” Scorpio said, “because if he isn’t, he’s not a lot of use to us.”
He patted the young man on the shoulder. “Now wait here while I circle
the island. It won’t take me more than an hour, and my guess is I’ll find
him somewhere near the sea.”


Scorpio made his way across the flat rocky fringes of the island, spreading
his stubby arms for balance, not caring in the slightest how awkward or
comical he appeared.
He slowed, thinking that in the distance he could see a figure shifting in
and out of the darkening haze of late-afternoon sea mist. He squinted,
trying to compensate for eyes that no longer worked as well as they had in
Chasm City, when he had been younger. On one level he hoped that the
mirage would turn out to be Clavain. On another he hoped that it would
turn out to be a figment of his imagination, some conjunction of rock,
light and shade tricking the eye.
As little as he cared to admit it, he was anxious. It was six months since
he had last seen Clavain. Not that long a time, really, most certainly not
when measured against the span of the man’s life. Yet Scorpio could not
rid himself of the sense that he was about to encounter an acquaintance
he had not met in decades; someone who might have been warped beyond
all recognition by life and experience. He wondered how he would respond
if it turned out that Clavain had indeed lost his mind. Would he even
recognise it if that was true? Scorpio had spent enough time around
baseline humans to feel confident about reading their intentions, moods
and general states of sanity. It was said that human and pigs minds were