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

vomit as if it was holy water. Man, it’s deep... some cargo-cult of the soul. We’re built to dream
outwards. They laugh at us. They don’t have it.”
There were sounds of movement in the next corridor. The dinner crowd was starting. I had to get rid
of him and get there; maybe I could find the Procya. A side door opened and a figure started towards us.
At first I thought it was an alien and then I saw it was a woman wearing an awkward body-shell. She
seemed to be limping slightly. Behind her I could glimpse the dinner-bound throng passing the open door.
The man got up as she turned into the bay. They didn’t greet each other.
“The station employs only happily wedded couples,” he told me with that ugly laugh. “We give each
other... comfort.”
He took one of her hands. She flinched as he drew it over his arm and let him turn her passively, not
looking at me. “Forgive me if I don’t introduce you. My wife appears fatigued.”
I saw that one of her shoulders was grotesquely scarred.
“Tell them,” he said, turning to go. “Go home and tell them.” Then his head snapped back toward
me and he added quietly, “And stay away from the Syrtis desk or I’ll kill you.”
They went away up the corridor.
I changed tapes hurriedly with one eye on the figures passing that open door. Suddenly among the
humans I caught a glimpse of two sleek scarlet shapes. My first real aliens! I snapped the recorder shut
and ran to squeeze in behind them.



THE SNOWS ARE MELTED, THE SNOWS ARE GONE
The cold silent land was lightening as the human figure walked up to the ridge. On pale rock the
figure was a dark fork, too thin. Serpent-shouldered. It sank into a patch of scrub below the crest, turned
a small face up to the sky, crouched again.
A shadow flitted, circling the ridge. A large dog; no, a very large wolf. The animal drifted onto the
rocks above the human, froze. The stiff line of its brush showed an old break. The dawn was coming fast
now, but to the west the valley was still dark. Faint howling rose from the valley, then ceased.
The dog-wolf faded off the ridge, reappeared by the bushes where the human crouched. The figure
bowed its head; as the wolf came near. Dawn light flickered on his canines. He snapped sideways,
carrying away a dark cap.
A flood of light spilled out, flew as the human tossed it back. The wolf dropped the cap, sat down
and began to worry at something on its chest.
Daylight sprang up the sky. In the niche below the rocks the figure was now clearly visible, a young
girl in rough jacket and breeches, shaking out her hair. The shoulders of her jacket ended in pads. It had
no arms. Nor had she, none at all. A phocomorph. She settled herself beside the wolf, who showed now
as bulge-headed with oddly curling fur.
He had drawn out a small object which lay between them on the rock. They were face to face,
dawn glinting yellow from his eyes, blue in the girl’s. His paw went to the object, clicked.
“Patrol to base,” the girl said softly.
Tiny squeak of reply.
“We’re at the ridge. The river’s about five kilometers west. There’s a trail below us, it hasn’t been
used since the rains. We heard the dogs. We’ll wait here till dark, after that we’ll be in radio shadow.
We’ll signal when we’re out, maybe night after next.”
Louder squeaking, a woman’s voice. Wolf jaws widened, girl-lips grinned,
“We always take care. Patrol out.”
The wolf clicked off and then bent and delicately gripped her boot tip in his teeth. The armless girl
pulled her foot free, flexed her slim prehensile toes in the cold light. When the other boot came off she
used her toes to unhitch the pack harness from his dense fur. He stretched hugely, flung himself down and
rolled, revealing a rich cream underbelly.