"Richard Paul Russo - Rosetta Codex" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russo Richard Paul)

again. If someone asks you what your last name is, say you don’t know. Your last name’s
dangerous now. Do you understand, Cale?―

“Yes, Papa.― He paused and added, “My name’s Cale. Just Cale.―
“Good. Now go, quickly.―

“Bye, Papa.―

“Goodbye, Cale. I’ll see you soon, I promise.― Then, with a halting voice said to Sidonie,
“Take care of him.―

“I will.―

She gripped Cale’s hand tightly and led him out into the passage, and Cale looked back at the tense
and hard face of his father, afraid he would never see him again.



Gusting winds and turbulence buffeted the Kestrel; the wing-jet dipped and bucked, shimmied sideways.
They could see little more than dark gray. Thick storm clouds engulfed them. Sidonie turned to Cale.
“Don’t be afraid,― she said.

Cale shook his head, regarding her with complete confidence. “I’m not.―

But Sidonie seemed to be afraid. She turned back to the now nearly useless controls, pulled and twisted
at the stick, and punched light panels with her fingers. The roiling clouds continued to rush past them, and
she said quietly and tautly, “We’re dropping too fast.―

A break in the clouds opened to their right. Cale craned his neck around and glimpsed the towers of tall
buildings in the distance behind them: a big city, glass and metal reflections like flames in the rising sun.
Far, far away and getting farther every second. He thought they were trying to get to that city and all
those bright buildings. He thought his father was going to be there soon. But not his mother, she was
back at their home and he hadn’t seen her in a long time and he didn’t know when he would.
The clouds enveloped them again and they continued to hurtle farther from the city.

Suddenly they were beneath the clouds, and the land below them appeared. Mountains stretched
endlessly in all directions, broken by plains and valleys, large tracts of blue-green forests; a river snaked
through a jagged shadowed canyon then widened and meandered through golden flat grasslands; far
ahead and to the left sprawled a vast dark blue lake like a giant gas nebula. All of it coming up at them
much too swiftly.

Sidonie struggled with the controls, hissing out words that Cale couldn’t quite understand. The
wing-jet passed over a peak of black rock and continued to drop. There was no place to land. They
cleared another peak, this time with a far smaller margin, and a flat and barren mesa spread out below
them, networked by gullies and ravines, pocked with dry and spindly scrub. Steep rocky slopes rose to
one side, and the mesa dropped precipitously away on the others. Sidonie worked at the controls, and
the Kestrel dropped toward the earth. “I’m going to try to land us here,― she told Cale.

She twisted around and checked once more to confirm that Cale was securely strapped in, tugging at the
harness clasps. “Hold on tight,― she said, then returned her attention to the controls. Sand and