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

bloody answer to what happened to us on Horl, aren’t you? And if we hadn’t caught you tonight—”
A kick sent him sprawling at the sealmen’s feet. They hooted and stamped. Everyone was yelling,
Nantli screaming, “Cox! It’s not his fault, they’ve messed up his mind, you can see that—” until Cox’s
bellow cut them all off.
He walked over to Vivyan and took him by the hair, scowling down into his face. It never occurred
to Vivyan to use his strength against the terrifying little man.
“I should kill you,” Cox said quietly. “Maybe I will. But maybe first we have a use for little Vivyan.”
He straightened up releasing Vivyan. “If I can bear the sight. All those years,” he said in a harsh hurting
voice. “Thank God at least the kid is safe... Terran filth. Take him to Doc.”
He went out abruptly with the three big sealmen.
The pain in Vivyan’s head quieted as he followed Nantli through green flaking tunnels to a large dim
place. Seal people were lying everywhere, on ledges and piles of seaweed. Vivyan saw a small face
bubbling at him over its mother’s side. He smiled eagerly and then he noticed that there was something
wrong with it. With all of them.
“Their skins,” he said. An old Terran stood up.
“Hull-scrapers from the Enclave,” the man said. “Poisons ’em.”
“This is Vivyan, Doc,” said Nantli. “He doesn’t know who he is or anything.”
“Who does?” grunted the doctor. Vivyan studied him, wondering if this could possibly be his new
friend. He felt horribly shaken. Maybe this man was to prepare him to go on to a new place?
“Lie down,” the doctor told him. Vivyan felt the flash of an injector. Suddenly he was very
frightened. There was a danger he’d been warned against, a thing that was not allowed. If this man was
not a friend he had done something very wrong. How had this happened? He was trapped. Bad.
But then he remembered that there was some way to be all right, something his friends had fixed in
case of trouble. He must relax. Peacefulness was the key. He lay quietly breathing the wet cave air, not
looking or listening. But it was hard to be peaceful here. Sealmen were coming through, hooting at the
sick ones on the seaweed who roused themselves and hooted back. Shouting, stamping, more hooting.
Something seemed to be happening. A sealman shook a laser at the doctor, laughing in a wild
yowling way. The doctor grunted, doing things to the seal-baby. Vivyan felt dizzy and unclean. In a
moment he would leave this place.
But white-ringed eyes were over him. Cox.
“Now. Talk. How much have you passed your contact here?”
Vivyan could only stare, the words meant nothing. Nantli’s face appeared, saying gently, “Don’t be
frightened, Vivyan. Just tell us. You did talk to your friend about me, didn’t you?”
The shutter-thing in Vivyan’s brain seemed to be sliding, melting.
“Oh yes.” His lips felt floppy.
“That’s right. And Captain Palcay, did you talk about him?”
 “Pal, Palcay?” Vivyan mumbled. The brown man made an angry noise.
“The spacer you were with at Flor’s, Vivyan, the one who got so drunk. Did you tell your friend
about that?”
Vivyan could not follow her clearly but at the words “tell your friend” he nodded his head, yes. Cox
snarled.
“And have you told him you’ve seen Cox here?”
Vivyan felt a sudden jar inside him as though he had missed a step. The brown man—had he ever?
This was very peculiar. Frightening. He turned his head to meet the pale ringed eyes.
“Cox?”
“Not Cox!” the brown man said furiously. “Cancoxtlan. Cancoxtlan! Remember yourself, Vivyan
of Atlixco, son of Tlaara.”
“My mother was raped and butchered by the rebels,” Vivyan heard his voice saying in a weird flat
tone. The words meant only pain. “They burned my father alive and all my family. The shrikes ate their
bodies. My pony too,” he began to sob. “Butchers. Traitors. You’re hurting me, it hurts—”