"Rohan,.Michael.Scott.-.Steve.Fisher.2.-.1992.-.The.Gates.of.Noon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rohan Michael Scott)

'Paradise is relative. So is lush. Thing is, Ball's got little or no water of its own; and that's what this business is all about. It depends mostly on rainwater flowing down from the central highlands, and there's none too much of that. Fair shares make the difference between idyll and starvation. It's been that way for centuries now, so they've evolved a pretty sophisticated irrigation system to distribute water — so long it's become all mixed up with their society, their religion, everything. They have these societies called subaks to govern the community rice paddies, sort of local water-temples with complicated law codes and judge-priests to administer them. It's democratic, in its way, and it works. So far.'
Dave nodded. 'We had things like that back home, in some places. Pretty arbitrary, though - the chief or shaman or elders settling disputes under the banyan tree, that kind of thing. Or the District Officer, when you guys took over. This sounds more sophisticated.'
'It is. Complicated as hell. And Ball's changing, just like everywhere else.'
Tourism booming in the eighties and nineties, sure. Rock stars getting married there, that kind of thing.*
'That - but not just that. The population's expanding - better medicine, hygiene, the usual reasons. And whatever the cause, global warming or deforestation or the natural cycle or whatever, the rainfall patterns are definitely altering. For the worse. The subak system's had its day; the klian subaks, the priests, they can't cope any more, or soon won't. A few years back this American college project thought they could get it to hold up by teaching 'em to put the whole damn system on little home computers! But there's got to be something serious done now, and soon. I can tell you, the central government's pretty worried. The island's going to need a whole new system, a couple of desalination plants like they have in the Gulf - and guess what those cost! Plus more efficient collection, storage, distribution, all controlled by a centralised computer network. Maximise the use of every last drop they can get.*
'The difference between idyll and starvation ... ' repeated Dave thoughtfully. 'Seems like a shame. And how the hell are they going to pay for all that?'
'Usual channels - World Bank tending, aid from the Gulf
n
States, European Community, a lot of places. But it's all pretty tight, after the debt crisis; that's all earmarked for the desalination plants, and they won't be operational for maybe ten years. They were going to have to muck along with the present irrigation system meanwhile, and that could mean eight or nine crisis years — maybe even hard famine. A hell of a lot of suffering, plus infant mortality, environmental damage, maybe even epidemics. At the very least it'd kill the tourist industry stone-dead, and that means less hard currency, the central government less willing to spend money there — you see the progression?*
'I do,' said Dave grimly. He'd grown up in the aftermath of the Nigerian famine; he knew. 'Anybody doing anything?'
'They got one of the US college foundations to step in. It set up a project, finagled a bit more public and private funding - good PR. So the Project's buying the most expensive stuff, the sluice engineering and control systems, in the USA and Europe, and recruiting the manpower; but even there money's very short. This is an ecologically clean project; big money's not interested, because there are no massive returns to be made. The islanders will benefit, and the government's all for it — no political problem involved as far as we can see. Yet it seems that all along the line there's been trouble,*
Dave cocked his head. 'Now you tell me?'
I felt slightly abashed. I hadn't believed it could affect us, that was all. 'Well, I didn't fully understand it myself, not at first. All I was told was, the foundation was having a hell of a time shipping their stuff. When I saw what they could afford to pay, that didn't seem too hard to understand. So we polished up our haloes and said cost or below. And here we are.'
'Yeah. And we might as well be up to our necks in that damn klong. So it appears you've heard a bit more about this mysterious trouble since.'
'No, it bloody well doesn't! Just what all our friends and associates here - our usual associates - let drop when they turned us down, Only to me; they don't know you that well yet. Vague rumbles, worried mutterings; nothing too specific. But each and every one of them effectively stuck the black spot on the whole Project. And you've heard nothing else yourself?'
We fetched up at some huts, and absent-mindedly turned down behind them, away from the klong. Dave thought back. 'Well, now that you mention it... I didn't even connect it at the rime.
But old Lee Wang Ji over at Taiwan Star just happened to drop into the conversation that guerrilla trouble on Jawa might be spreading to Bali. He didn't add anything.'
'Yes, well, Boonserb at Pacific C did. Hinted the terrorists might have their knives into the Project. But he was shipping right into Jakarta during the last big blow-up a couple of years back — and Sulawesi, too. Never stopped him for a minute. 1 looked up die Bali incidents, and they were just a couple of bushwhackings, nothing like the same scale. Probably by Javanese fugitives. You're not telling me that's the reason!'
We strolled along in silence, thinking deeply. At last Dave stopped and fished for his cigarettes. 'So the shippers are just looking for excuses. Me with my wicked Third World upbringing, I'd say any block as complete as this has got to be political. Bound to be. Maybe some other governments in the region ...'
1 felt a great ride of hopelessness surge over me. This was ground I'd been over and over these last few days. 'Which ones, for god's sake? What could any of them gain by scuppering this Project? Ball's about the most peaceful place in Indonesia. Peace, natural beauty, rich farming, good surfing - that's about the sum total of its resources. No threat to anyone, damn near impossible to invade...' I sighed, and kicked at the ground. A great fan of dirt showered out. 'Dave, I don't know... I'm not just being paranoid, am I?'
'Well, we both ...' He finished lighting his cigarette, and blew oat an irritable blast of expensive smoke. It dawned on us both then; no pavement underfoot. 'Damn! Just where the hell have we got to?'
We gazed around. Somehow or other the crowded little streets had melted away, and we were standing in some sort of back alley, barren and dirty and unusually empty. The walk around us were a wild assortment. Rows of rotting brown planks, patched with bamboo and rusty corrugated iron, ran right up to elegant old stonework, pitted and cracked. Pastel plasterwork crumbled away from the wall of cheap yellow brick that crowded up against it, shedding its mortar in loose flakes, or absorbed the sordid staining from a cracked downflow pipe, pooling in fetid puddles at its base. A wrought-iron fire-escape sagged drunkenly from windows that seemed to be mostly boards, grinning sharklike with shards of dirty glass. As a child, fascinated, I'd
13
watched windows like that in old half-empty tenements, a strong wind setting the glass teeth chattering with a faint chilly icicle music. Now and again one would work loose and drop with a crash into the sordid lot behind, unregarded by those within. Here they rippled to a softer breeze, like a hot breath on our
necks, to a more alien music. We turned round. Behind us we could dimly see a complex
warren of alleys kinking away in all directions, floored with mud
and refuse, swimming with pools of accumulated unpleasantness.
Dave stared appalled at his elegant brogues. 'Did we realty come
stomping through that stuff? Without noticing?'
'We must have got turned around somehow/1 remarked, and
strode confidently around the next corner. 'So it must have
been..."
1 walked straight into a wall of mist. No other word for it; not a cloud, not wisps, just a single sudden wall, the way it looks when you come up against it on a nightbound motorway with too much on the clock and brakes squealing into lock. One minute I was walking in the late afternoon light, the next I was stumbling through obscurity where even sounds rang differently, where refuse piles I'd been carefully avoiding were somehow no longer there. It was warm, clammy, hard to breathe. Even my footfalls sounded different. 'Dave? You there?' 'If I knew where there is, I might answer that! I'm sure
somewhere.'
'Can you see anything? What's underfoot?'
'Well, dirt... no, wait a minute. Stone?
'Remains of one of the older buildings, maybe. And dammit, there's even a pillar of some sort, 1 just saw it over there... damn, it's gone now.1
'Over where?
He answered himself by crashing into me. We staggered back against the pillar. What felt like very uneven stonework jabbed into my back. The mist was thinner here, and looking down I saw I was resting on uneven nubs of grey stone, its surface faintly cracked and lichen-encrusted; it was deeply carved, with what looked like hanging foliage. I looked up. Dimly through die whiteness 1 could see what must be other pillars, tall tapering shadows that seemed to stand alone, supporting nothing more substantial than the coils of mist. I was about to say something
14
when Dave grabbed my arm. He didn't need to point. Between two of the columns there was now a third shadow, inchoate, changing. It took me a moment to realise it was a human outline, half turning, this way, that way, hunched up as if it was peering about. For an instant it loomed our way, and I found myself silent, short-breathed, desperately hoping it wouldn't spot us. Then, still in that concentrated half-crouch, it disappeared back into die mist.
If anything it left its feeling behind it. A horrible hunted sensation was growing on me, spreading like chilly lichen. I'd felt something like it once before, a burgeoning unease in my bones — but where? I looked at Dave. There was a grey tinge to his skin as if the mist had got under it. I mouthed Let's get out of here \ and he nodded fervently. Slowly, quietly, keeping a firm grip on each other's arms, we sidled around the curve of the pillar. Ahead were other pillars, and we hadn't passed any on our way in; so this ought to be the best bet. If the normal rules applied, that was...
Why had I thought that? When didn't they apply?
Something was stirring in my memory, something formless as the shadow in the mist. Something that still woke me in the cold chill hours before dawn, confused, in conflict, still spinning on a sparking pinwheel of feelings. Less often, these last few years; but on a night not long ago one girl had put a hand up to my cheek as I sat there, panting. She'd exclaimed, wondering, 'You're all sweaty! Like a fever! And ...'
Did the silly bitch have to sound so utterly dumbfounded? *Steve, you've been crying?
A few years earlier I might have thrown her out on the spot; even then I was tempted. But the strongest feeling in me was loss; only for what? Something definite, but something I struggled against, something I refused to give shape to. My great bam of a flat was in darkness; but in the living room below the gallery that was my bedroom 1 could see a gleam of light, that just seemed to hang there in the emptiness. I'd got up, padded down the steps past the clothes she'd scattered there — always a bad sign. The light was only the moon, shining through the open window on to die grey Portland stone mantel and the old broadsword I'd hung over it. My designer had shed bitter tears over that; it was right out of place in his glassy post-modernist vision. Most of my guests agreed with him, but I wouldn't be parted from it. I touched the
15
cool perfection of the blade, like still waters. Impulsively I laid my hot forehead against it, and that seemed to still the confusion. Then I'd mixed up drinks and taken them back to bed. She'd enough sense not to press me, so we'd had a pleasant time making the sun come up — but die darkness of that half-formed dream had lingered. And now, here, I sensed somehow, as with a hint of a long-forgotten scent or flavour, that it was out of that darkness all this had come boiling up.
With the pillar in front of us we hastily backed away, darting looks this way and that as each swirt in the mist threatened us with hidden fears. We'd rounded a corner; so if we went back—
With switching suddenness there was light around us again, die same warm light we'd left, the same soft dirt underfoot, the same compounded stinks. After that formless emptiness they were almost welcome, the stained walls gloriously solid and confining. 'It's the alley okay!' Dave's grin was a rictus of relief. 'Now let's get the hell—'