"Gene Wolfe - Long Sun 4 - Exodus from the long sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

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EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN
by Gene Wolfe


Chapter 1 -- Back from Death


An eerie silence overhung the ruined villa. Listening for the closing
of a slug gun's bolt, Maytera Mint heard only the groan of the wind
and the irregular snapping of the flag of truce she held.
"On Phaesday they were _in situ_," Patera Remora conceded. "The
Ayuntamiento, eh?"
They had come abreast of a dead talus, its painted steel sides
blistered by fire and blackened by smoke; she caught a whiff of fish
oil, despite the wind.
"Might be repaired, eh, General?" Remora pushed back a lock of
lank black hair that had fallen over his eyes. "Not like we biochemicals,
hey? Still we--ah--dispatch their spirits to Mainframe. Not identical
in the, um, revivified one, perhaps. Amongst the new parts."
"Or they really haven't any," Maytera Mint murmured. She had
stopped to wait for Remora, and was taking the opportunity to study
the windows of the house that had been Blood's.
Her remark bordered on heresy, but Remora thought it most
prudent to return to his earlier topic. "If they're not here, eh? Loris
and the rest? Will, ah, Buffalo--"
"Bison." She turned back to Remora, her face pinched and the tip
of her delicate nose red with cold. "Colonel Bison."
"Um, precisely. Will Colonel Bison," Remora waved vaguely at the
ruined wall, "and his--ah--troopers await our return back there?"
"You heard my instructions, Your Eminence."
"But if we're some time, eh? The front door is broken. Shattered,
in fact."
Maytera Mint, who had noted it as they passed through the ruined
gateway, nodded.
"So it's not a matter of knocking, hey? Not a mere matter of
knocking at all." Remora brightened. "Knock on the frame, eh? We
could do that. Wait a bit. Polite."
"I will go inside," she told him firmly, "and search. I would not
presume to dictate Your Eminence's course of action. If I can get
in touch with the Ayuntamiento, I'll ask them to send for you. If I
can't, I may be able to learn where we can. As for Colonel Bison,
he's completely loyal, my best officer. My only concern is that he
may send in a patrol to look for us, though I have forbidden it."
"I, um, apprehend your position," Remora said, rejoining her.
"If one does not expect obedience, one will not, ah, be obeyed.
Memorized it in schola, all of us did. Still, if he were to depart?
Decamp. Our, um, withdrawal to the city could be hazardous, hey?
Laborious, likewise."