"Jeff VanderMeer - Quin's Shanghai Circus (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vandermeer Jeff)

going there again. Half the shops float on the water, so when the
ocean-going ships come in with their catch and off-load after decon, the
eateries get the first pick. All the Biggest Wigs eat there. You can order
pseudo-whale, fiddler, sunfish, the works. Most places overlook the water
and you can find anything there -- mechanicals and Living Art and sensual
pleasures that will leave you quivering and unconscious. All done up in a
pallet of Colors-Sure-To-Please. Sunsets courtesy of Holo Ink, so you
don't have to see the glow of pollution, the haze of smog-shit-muck.
Whenever I was down, there I would go, just to sit and watch the Giants of
Bioindustry and the Arts walk by, sipping from their carafes of alkie
(which I don't envy them, rot-gut seaweed never having been a favorite of
mine).
And so I was down, real down (more down than now, sitting in a garbage
zone and spieling to you), and I wanted a talk with Shadrach because I
knew he worked for Quin and he might relent, relinquish and tell me what I
wanted to know.
It so happened that I bumped into Shadrach in a quiet corner, away from
the carousing and watchful eye of the Canal Police, who are experts at
keeping Order, but can never decide exactly which Order, if you know what
I mean, and you probably don't.
We still weren't alone, though -- parts merchants and debauched jewelried
concierge wives and stodgy autodocs, gleaming with a hint of self-repair,
all sped or sauntered by, each self-absorbed, self-absorbing.
Shadrach played it cool, cooler, coolest, listening to the sea beyond,
visible from a crack in our tall falling walls.
"Hi," I said. "Haven't seen you since those lousey pick dicks did their
evil work. You saved my skin, you did."
"Hello, Nick," Shadrach replied, looking out at the canals.
("Hello, Nick," he says, after all the compli- and condi-ments I'd given
him!)
Shadrach is a tall, muscular man with a tan, a flattened nose from his
days as courier between city states -- the funny people gave him that --
and a dour mouth. His clothes are all out of date, his sandals positively
reeking of antiquity. Still thinks he's a Twenty-Seventh Century Man, if
you know what I mean, and, again, you probably don't. (After all, you are
sitting here in a garbage zone with me.)
"So how're things with you?" I said, anticipating that I'd have to drag
him kicking and screaming to my point.
"Fine," he said. "You look bad, though." No smile.
I suppose I did look bad. I suppose I must have, still bandaged up and a
swell on my head that a geosurfer would want to ride.
"Thanks," I said, wondering why all my words, once smartly deployed for
battle, had left me.
"No problem," he said.
I could tell Shadrach wasn't in a talking mood. More like a Dead Art mood
as he watched the canals.
And then the miracle: he roused himself from his canal contemplation long
enough to say, "I could get you protection," all the while staring at me
like I was a dead man, which is the self-same stare he always has. But
here was my chance.