"James Tiptree Jr. -10000 Light Years From Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

incredibly, a bright light ahead. The burst up into a cavern booming with sea-sound. He gulped air, staring
with delight at a lantern on a ledge. All doubts vanished, he was glad he had come.
The webbed ones were scrambling out around him. Bipeds no taller than his waist, with lobed and
crested heads. When they tugged his arms he bent and let them blindfold him before they led him into a
tunnel. What an adventure to tell his friend!
The tunnel was dripping and musty and the way was hard to his feet. Coral. Presently he had to go
under water again, still blindfolded. When they came out the air was dry and warmer and when he
stumbled he felt crumbling limestone shelves. His sealmen hooted, were answered. Suddenly he was
jostled and turned and they were taking his blindfold off, in a crowded place where several passageways
met.
Before him stood three much larger sealmen. To Vivyan’s intense surprise they were holding
weapons of a type which he knew for forbidden. He was just looking at these when the scent of the girl
Nantli pulled his head around. How could she be here? He smiled uncertainly and then he saw the white
eyes of the man Cox. The adventure was going bad.
“All right.” Cox spoke to the sealmen who had brought him and they pulled at Vivyan.
“Strip down.”
Wondering, he did so and felt an instrument sliding on the base of his spine.
“See,” said Nantli’s voice. “A scar, I told you.”
The brown man made a grunt like a sob and came and grasped Vivyan by the shoulders.
“Vivyan,” he said thickly in the strange way. “Where are you from?”
“Alpha Centauri Four,” Vivyan told him, automatically remembering the garden city, his parents. The
memory felt queer, thin. He saw the big sealmen gazing expressionlessly, cradling their weapons.
“No, before that.” Cox’s grasp tightened. “Think, Vivyan. Where were you born?”
Vivyan’s head began to hurt unpardonably. He squinted down through the pain, wondering how he
could get away.
“They’ve done something to him, I told you,” Nantli said.
“In God’s name, try.” Cox shook him. “Your real home! Your home, Vivyan. Remember Zilpan
mountain? Remember—remember your black pony? Remember Tlaara? Have you forgotten your
mother Tlaara who sent you away when, the revolt started, to keep you safe?”
The pain was terrible now. “Alpha Centauri Four,” he whimpered.
“Stop, Cox,” Nantli cried.
“Not Alpha!” Cox shook him savagely, his white eyes glaring. “Atlixco! Can a prince of Atlixco
forget so easily?”
“Please stop it, please.” Nantli begged. But Vivyan had realized he must listen very carefully in spite
of the pain. Atlixco was the bad place, the world he didn’t think about ordinarily. This was not ordinary.
His friend would want him to listen.
“The scar,” Cox breathed through his teeth, made a kind of dreadful chuckle. “I have one too.
They’ve tried to make you look like an ordinary Terran. Don’t you remember that little deformity you
were so proud of, Vivyan? Alpha Centauri! You’re twenty generations of inbred Atlixco, Vivyan, born
with a curly, hairy, tail. Remember?”
Vivyan cringed helplessly under the angry voice. Nantli pushed forward.
 “What did they tell you about Atlixco, Vivyan?” she asked gently.
A painful shutter seemed to grate in Vivyan’s head.
“Butchers ... murderers ... All dead,” he whispered.
Nantli pried at the brown man’s hands. “Alpha Centauri, he grew up believing it all. A good Terran
upbringing. Let him be, there isn’t time.”
“All dead?” Cox demanded. “Look at me, Vivyan. You know me. Who am I?”
“Cox,” Vivyan gasped. “I must tell—”
A hard hand slashed across his face, he went down on one knee.
“Tell!” Cox roared. “You traitorous crotchlouse! Little Prince Vivyan, the Empire spy. You’re the