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

The brown face watched him, suddenly still. Then Cox said heavily, “Yes. Princes get killed. Even
good kind princes who weren’t responsible, only blind. They get killed too... I couldn’t make them see,
Vivyan. At the end I couldn’t even get to them in tune.”
“We were so happy,” Vivyan wept, “we were peaceful and beautiful.”
“You were five years old,” said Cox. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you what we’d done to the
Atlixcans? The real Atlixcans? Two centuries of happiness for Terran princes, two centuries of
slavery—the debt got paid, Vivyan.”
A sealman ran up uttering barking cries. Cox turned to him.
“Oh, God, they’re going ahead,” Nantli exclaimed. “Cox—”
“All the way,” Cox said. He turned back and gripped Vivyan’s head. “They lied to you, can you
understand? We were wrong. We were the butchers. The Empire, us. We’re fighting it now, Vivyan.
You’ve got to come with us. You must. You owe it, Prince of Atlixco. We can use you in place, in their
spy net—”
One of the big sealmen had come up and grabbed Cox’s shoulder. Vivyan heard Nantli saying
something and suddenly the white eyes had left him, they were all gone. Other sealmen and Terrans ran
through, but no one bothered him.
He lay with his head whirling and hurting, wondering if it had been all right. His lips seemed to have
spoken by themselves, as they did when he was with his friend. Was it all right? He must get out of here
as soon as he could stand up.
He drowsed a little and then more sealmen were all around him, hooting, groaning, smelling of burnt
flesh and blood. A body bumped him. It was a Terran in a wetsuit oozing blood. The man slumped
down, yelling, “Hey Doc, you gloomy sod, we got the goddamn transmitters! You bloody pervert, Doc!”
he shouted. “The Tlixcan ships are coming in, how about that you gutless mother?”
“They’ll burn the planet,” the doctor told him. “Cut that off so you can fry clean.”
He hauled the man away. Vivyan saw that the passage was now clear. Next minute he was out and
running back the way he had come.
His memory was perfect, although he felt a little ill. All he had to do was let his feet carry him while
his eyes and ears kept watch. Twice he ducked into side tunnels while sealmen went by with their
wounded. Then he was at the place where many tunnels met, where they had removed his blindfold
trusting to the maze.
Vivyan simply closed his eyes and let his body guide him back. Turn, rough place to the left, bend
his head, cool air on his right side, the natural mechanism within him unspooled its perfect tape. He only
had to hide once more. These passages seemed to be unused.
Presently he was through the inner pool and into the last dark tunnel undersea. This was easier yet,
he could hear the water churning under the reef and he ran stooped in the darkness, longing to be out in
the clean, away from this peaceless place. Surely they would take him away now to a new place, after he
had given all these things to his friend?
He reached the cavern. No lantern now. That didn’t matter, Vivyan knew exactly where to dive,
how to come up under the reef. He kicked powerfully down into blackness, thinking he must be sure to
remember everything. This must be a secret way to the caves, it would be a wonderful surprise.
In a moment he had surfaced and marked the horizon and the stars. There seemed to be fires on the
shore. He began to swim eagerly, feeling marvelous now. This would be his best yet. If only the name
Cancoxtlan didn’t trouble his head... but he would forget about that, he felt sure. Peace flooded him as
he saw the far light of his friend’s house by the cove.

“No one noticed he had gone,” the woman told the newsman. “The fight for the Enclave had started
and Cancoxtlan was there. When the Terrans broke in through the reef tunnel we managed to blow the
section between the hospital and the armory. They got the wounded, of course, and Doctor Vose. And
Nantli. But it had no effect.” Her scarred face was impassive. “Cox wouldn’t surrender to save Nantli,
she wouldn’t have wanted that. The raid diverted one of their core units.”