"Michael Swanwick - Cold Iron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

It was impossible, of course. Only the dragons and their half-human engineers ever left the plant by air.
All others, workers and management alike, were held in by the walls and, at the gates, by security guards
and the hulking cast iron Time Clock. And yet at that instant she felt something take hold within her, a
kind of impossible hunger. She knew now that the idea, if nothing more, of freedom was possible, and,
that established, the desire to be free herself was impossible to deny.
Down at the base of her hindbrain, something stirred and looked about with dark interest. She
experienced a moment's dizzy nausea, a removal into some lightless claustrophobic realm, and then she
was once again deep in the maw of the steam dragon plant, in the little dormitory room on the second
floor of Building 5, wedged between a pattern store room and the sand shed, with dusty wooden beams
and a tarpaper roof between her and the sky.

"So he'll get to fly away," Dimity said sourly. Her tail lashed back and forth discontentedly. "So what?
Are we supposed to kill Blugg as a going-away present?"

Rooster punched her on the shoulder for insubordination. "Dolt! Pimple! Douchebag! You think Blugg
hasn't noticed? You think he isn't . planning to make an offering to the Goddess, so she'll keep the change
away?"

Nobody else said anything, so reluctantly Jane asked, "What kind of offering?"

He grabbed his crotch with one hand, formed a sickle with the other, and then made a slicing gesture with
the sickle. His hand fell away. He raised an eyebrow. "Get it?"

She didn't really, but Jane knew better than to admit that. Blushing, she said, "Oh."

"Okay, now, I've been studying Blugg. On black foundry days, he goes to his office at noon, where he
can watch us through the window in his door, and cuts his big, ugly nails. He uses this humongous great
knife, and cuts them down into an ashtray. When he's done, he balls them up in a paper napkin and
tosses it into the foundry fires, so they can't be used against him.

"Next time, though, I'm going to create a disturbance. Then Jane will slip into his office and steal one or
two parings. No more," he said, looking sternly at her, "or he'll notice."

"Me?" Jane squeaked. "Why me?"

"Don't be thick. He's got his door protected from the likes of the rest of us. But you—you're of the other
blood. His wards and hexes won't stop you."

"Well, thanks heaps," Jane said. "But I won't do it. It's wrong, and I've already told you why." Some of
the smaller children moved toward her threateningly. She folded her arms. "I don't care what you guys
say or do, you can't make me. Find somebody else to do your dirty work!"

"Aw, c'mon. Think of how grateful we'd all be." Rooster got up on one knee, laid a hand across his heart
and reached out yearningly. He waggled his eyebrows comically. "I'll be your swain forever."

"No!"

Stilt was having trouble following what they were saying. In his kind this was an early sign of impending
maturity. Brow furrowed, he turned to Rooster and haltingly said, "I . . . can't fly?"