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

The girl toed out a food pack and canteen. He got up and carried it to a spring beside the outcrop,
pawing it under to fill. They ate and drank, the girl lying on her back and dangling the canteen over her
face by its strap. Once she let out a gurgle of laughter. His paw struck her head, pushed her face into her
knees. They finished eating, went to relieve themselves. It was broad daylight now, the sun sailing straight
up from the eastern hills as if on a wire. A wind rose with it, keening over the rocky rim.
The wolf belly-crawled to the crest, watched awhile, returned to the girl. They pulled brush around
themselves and curled together on the laterite shelf.
The sun mounted, struck through the wind’s chill. No bird flew, no furred animal appeared. In the
brush tangle, silence. Once a mantis-like thing rattled near the lair. A yellow eye opened at ground level.
The thing whirred away, the eye closed.
During the afternoon the wind carried a thin cawing sound to the outcrop. In the brush yellow eyes
were joined by blue. The murmur faded, the eyes disappeared again. Nothing more happened. The
equatorial sun dropped straight down the west into the valley, quieting the wind.
As shadow flowed over the outcrop the brush was pulled aside. Girl and wolf came out together to
the stream and lapped, she bending like a snake. They ate again, and the girl toed the pack together,
fastened it to the wolf’s harness. He nosed the transmitter into its pouch in his chest wool and picked up
a boot for her to thrust her foot in. When she was shod he hooked a fang into the dark cap. She let her
pale hair coil into it and he pulled it over her head, adjusting it carefully away from her eyes. It was dark
now, a quarter-moon behind them in the east. She twisted to her feet, a human spring, and they set off
down the escarpment into the valley.
Arid scrubland eroded by old floods became forest as they descended. The pair moved watchfully
in single file, following a vague trail down. When the moon had passed zenith they halted to carry out
laborious rearrangements of brush and stones. Then they went on down through the trees, halted again to
labor. Trails branched here; when they moved on it was with greater care. Faint odors were in this air.
 The moon was setting ahead of them when they reached the ruined river gorge. Beyond the rocks a
broad sheet of silver muttered in the night. They crossed at a riffle, climbed a rock ledge, moved quietly
downstream. The scent was a stench now—smoke, fish, bodies, excrement, coming from a bend around
the crags. A dog’s howl rose was joined by another, cut off in yelps.
Girl and wolf came on the crags. Below them were three ragged thatches huddled in a cove. Smoke
rose from a single ash pile. The huts were in shadow. A last moonray silvered a pile of offal by the shore.
The two on the crag watched silently. It was warmer here, but no insect flew. In the huts below a
child whimpered, was silenced. Nothing visited the offal pile. The moon set, the river turned dark. A fish
splashed.
The wolf rose, drifted away. The girl listened to the river. He returned and she followed him upriver
to a high cranny in the ledges out of sight of the cove. In the river below the water gurgled around a line
of crazy stakes. The two ate and drank in silence. When the world lightened they were curled together in
sleep.
Sunlight struck their wall, shadows shrank to the east. From the cove came the shrilling of children,
deeper voices. A clatter, a cry. In the high cranny, sunlight reflected yellow glints behind dry weeds. The
wind was rising, blowing toward the sun across the river. Between the gusts came snarls, chirrupings,
undecipherable shouts, the crackle of fire. The eyes waited.
In midmorning two naked women came around the bend below, dragging something along the
shore. Seven more straggled after, paused to gesture and jabber. Their skin was angry red, pale at crotch
and armpits. White scars stood out, symmetrical chevrons on the bulging bellies. All had thick, conelike
nipples; two of them appeared close to term. Their hair was matted, rusty-streaked.
Above on the crags, blue eyes had joined yellow. The women were wading into the river now, their
burden revealed as a crude net which they proceeded to string between the stakes. They shrieked at
each other, “Weh weh! Ee, ah!” A small flock of children was drifting around the bend. Several of the
larger children carried babies. “Eee! Gah!” they echoed, high-voiced. A stake collapsed, was retrieved
with shrieks, would not stand, was abandoned.