"Stross, Charles - Ancient Of Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Oh shit," she said, starting to back away. "Hey, Eric –"
"Don't move," said the other one, the tall thin man standing behind the door. "You move, you get hurt."
"Ah." Her stomach felt like lead and her knees were about to give way.
"Hey, what's going –" Eric, standing behind her: he looked over her shoulder and saw the man with the gun. "Shit," he whispered.
"That makes it unanimous," said the bald one. "Won't you come on in? I'd like it if you'd sit in the sofa – there – where I can keep an eye on you."
Slowly, with exaggerated care, Sue sidled over to the sofa and sat down. Eric followed her. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. I hope he doesn't do anything stupid, she thought. Then, how do I stop this happening?
"That's good," said the bald one. "That's real cool. Now maybe we should have a chat, you know, loosen things up?"
"Who are you?" asked Eric in a low voice. "What do you want?"
The tall one strolled over from the doorway to stand behind the seated man. "You know who we are," he said, in a language which sent shivers of recognition down Sue's neck. "We come to talk sense."
The man in the chair shrugged. "You'll have to excuse my partner," he said: "he can be a bit blunt. Someone you might have heard of – one of your neighbours in this city – called us in to do a service. Ancient of Days. Perhaps you've met her?" He cocked his head, looked slightly disappointed when neither Sue nor Eric responded. "A shame. She's very – impressive. Anyway ... "
The tall one pulled his right hand out of his coat pocket. There was a small black pistol in it. He pulled his left hand out of the other pocket: he was holding a cylindrical object in that one. He began to screw the cylinder onto the muzzle of the pistol. "You'll have to excuse him," said the seated one: "he's a bit nervous." He blinked at them: "the police don't like him very much. Anyway. Where was I?
"Ah yes. We owe you for showing the point man in, where the files were held. However, you don't seem to have gotten the message: this is not a matter you want to get involved in. Oh no. In fact, you should do your best to forget about it, unless and until Ancient of Days sends for you. Is that understood?"
"I understand," said Sue. Suddenly her mouth was dry, but it was a dryness born of anger: she found that she very much wanted to spit. "I understand that what I see is a bunch of superstitious fools chasing around in the dark preparing to kill – yes, that's it, isn't it? That's what you do for a living – to kill a harmless scientist because some clapped-out fruitcake thinks human genetics research is going to conjure up the devil –"
"Wrong," said the seated assassin. "You understand nothing. You cannot possibly remember what it is we face; you will be nameless to history if you insist on giving aid to the humans in pulling down everything we have tried so hard to preserve!"
He raised the pistol and Sue unconsciously stopped breathing and steeled herself to jump; but before she could move there was a flash of light reflected from the gunman's face and a voice screamed "DOWN!" in her ear.
She rolled forwards and tried to hug the carpet: she heard three muffled spitting sounds overhead, and then a crashing of glass and heavy objects as the tall assassin fell, knocking the television set off its stand.
"Idiot," snarled Kristoph. "Were you trying to get yourself killed? Why didn't you duck?" Then, gently but urgently, "oh, see what he's done. Quickly, fetch a towel. Now!" Sue heard footsteps hurrying, doors banging, then a low moan behind her. She rolled over and sat up and saw Kristoph bent over the back of the sofa, gripping Eric – collapsed across it, his eyes closed – by one shoulder with both hands, both hands wrapped around an upper arm from which a huge, dark stain was slowly seeping. "A towel will do but a compression bandage or a torniquet would be a lot better and I need one or the other of them in a hurry," Kris muttered. "Otherwise he may bleed to death all over me."
She remembered standing in the bathroom, watching blood trickle and swirl down the white porcelain sink as the rushing water numbed her hands. She remembered ransacking the cupboard for bandages and finding nothing but a small tin of elastoplast, suitable only for grazes. And the towels were all pink, the same colour as her vomit when she heaved her entire meal up into the toilet. Then a strange woman was holding her by the shoulders and saying "it's alright, the bleeding's stopped and it's a clean puncture" as she slowly led Sue through into the living room. Eric wasn't in the sofa, but his blood was. Unaccountably, she began to cry. After all, it wasn't she who'd been shot, was it?
After a while she realised that she couldn't see the bodies. "Wh-what happened?" she asked, trying to dry her eyes and realising as she did so that her blouse was ruined, spots of blood everywhere on her right sleeve.
"Don't you worry about it," said the woman, "everything's going to be alright. Your friend is in bed, Kris is stitching his arm up – he's done it before, he says – he's going to be okay. A flesh wound."
"We've got to get him to hospital –" Sue began, before she comprehended how foolish her words must sound.
"Don't you worry about it," said the woman. "I'm Helena, by the way. I came here with Kris. Is there – " she stared at the bloodstained sofa – "anwhere else in this flat where we can go? Apart from the bedroom or the kitchen?"
Sue didn't think to ask what was wrong with the kitchen. "The back bedroom," she said automatically. "We can, I need to, sit down ..."
"I'll say you do." Helena took her by the arm as she stood up again and stumbled through the hall to the spare room. When she got there she collapsed on the bed and curled up and began to Change, so that Helena was hard-put to get her clothes off her. But that was okay. It was only a little more than she'd bargained for, after all.
Shock and exhaustion forced Sue into a deep sleep. Helena sat beside the bed, watching the shifting form that lay there, its flesh slowly crawling in an unconscious attempt to shut out the outside world. I can't even look at my own kind without seeing them through the eyes of a human, she realised. How much worse must it be for one of these, raised in a modern city and exposed to their education, their entertainment, their friendship all their life? Our ancestors would barel y recognise them. Worse, they would barely recognise the ancestors ...
She shook her head in sympathy and stood up. Then she left the room, closing the door behind her as she tracked through the hall and into the main bedroom. Kristoph glanced up as she entered, then continued to wrap his makeshift bandage around Eric's shoulder.
"She's taken it rather hard," Helena commented.
"I'm not surprised," said Kristoph. His voice was rough, as if he was fighting an inner battle and did not wish to be disturbed.
Eric rolled his eyes. "Ah – it's not easy," he whispered. "This mess ... we were going to come looking for you ..."
"Lie still. How is he?" she asked Kristoph.
"I've seen worse. Small calibre bullet, went clean through the quadriceps. I think he froze when the flash went off, otherwise he'd have been down on the floor with her and this wouldn't have happened. Nicked a vein, but no arterial bleeding. Knowing how we heal, you should be fine in a few days," he said for Eric's benefit. "The real question is what happens in the mean-time," he continued under his breath. "Depending whether those bastards were here of their own accord or at someone's command."
"We can fetch two tea-chests for the bodies," said Helena. "Then we ditch the sofa. Nobody's called the police so we may be able to conceal it –"
Kris looked at her coolly. "That's not what I meant."
Helena sat down on a low stool in front of the dresser, then turned to face Kristoph and the bed. "You know I've served Ancient of Days for twenty or more years. It wasn't necessarily through choice." She paused and looked at him, but he made no response. Eventually she continued.
"I was twenty-two when the call came. My family told me what to do, and in those days one obeyed. Reluctantly, but – I grew up on a farm. I was told to go to the city and present myself to Her. I didn't want to: I was afraid, and perhaps a little rebellious, but not too much so. I did as I was told, in the end. When I met her, She told me what I was to do. It seemed she had a servant before me, her eyes and ears among the humans, who had gone insane or died. I was to take their place. She hasn't been able to walk among them for a very long time – over a century, I think – and so she needs a set of proxy senses, preferably young, which can be exposed to the swirl and rush of the human civilisation above her head."
At the other end of the bed, Eric yawned and shut his eyes. Kristoph glanced up. "I'm listening."
"I gathered news," she continued. "I read all the literature and newspapers. I arranged for Ancient of Days to have a colour television, supplied by cable – not that she watched it. I dare say the images it brought to her were simply incomprehensible. Her curiosity is vast, but she needs me for the feel, the idea of what it's like to live among the humans. She hasn't ever seen an aeroplane except in pictures, has never ridden in a car. This new degenerative condition of hers is quite recent, but she refuses to summon anyone who might be able to treat it. I think she wants –"
"She wants what?" asked Kris.
"I don't know. It's just that I thought ... she wanted me not as a pair of eyes but as a mind, to understand what was going on in the world. You understand that; you've lived among Them, haven't you? But last time she was on the surface she rode in a horse-drawn carriage and there were new gas-lights along the high streets. And I don't think she quite understands how far things have changed, or how fast."
"Hence the pet thugs," Kris speculated. "Yes, that would explain a lot. In which case, these two –" his gestured encompassed Eric, and the wall behind which Sue lay sleeping – "have a more valid perspective on the world than she does, at least with respect to the humans. Doesn't that follow?"
"I don't like that line of reasoning," Helena said uneasily. "It's what it leads to ..." My destination barely five minutes ago, she chided herself. How long had these flowers of doubt been germinating? The dusty towers of the city had never struck her as a fertile soil for new ideas of any kind, much less for thoughts of treachery. She needs me, but how can I possibly serve her? If my loyalties belong with anyone, they should lie with the young. It's not for me to decide. Maybe –
"I think we should take these two to visit Ancient of Days," she said slowly. "They might be able to resolve this situation where I could only fail. In any case, it was her servants who died here tonight. She should be informed; at least, if you mean to involve your friends that you told me about."
Kris stared at her. "Do you really think so?"
She met his gaze. "Yes. Otherwise she will assume the worst, and act accordingly."
"And you think it isn't already too late for that?" he asked. "That her thrashing around doesn't offer a threat to the continuity of the race? Come on. If that's what you believe, I want to know –"
But to her shame she had to glance away; and when she looked back at him the time for second thoughts had long since passed.

***

Time changed, Kris thought as he waited for the phone to ring, but people never did. That was the root of the problem. A glass of whisky sat among the shadows by an overflowing ash tray, the last cigarette in the pack balanced burning on its rim. The faint howl of a descending jet cut through the night and the rattled the windows in their frame as he stared out across the city.