"Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope" - читать интересную книгу автора

black signalers motionless, antennae slowly waving, awaiting orders. A month
ago I used to wake up and think I'd go the day after tomorrow but we never
went, and long before that even I used to wake up and think the day after
tomorrow we'd be off at last and we never went. But if we don't go the day
after tomorrow, this time I'll go on my own. I used to think like that
before as well of course, but this time it's for sure. The best thing would
be to go now, straight away, no talking or trying to persuade. But that
needed a clear head. Better not. The best thing would be to decide once and
for all: as soon as I can wake with a clear head, be up, and straight out
into the street and away into the forest, and not let anybody start talking
to me. That's vital: don't let anybody start talking to you, distracting you
with their whining, starting your head buzzing, especially just here above
the eyes, till your ears start ringing and you feel like vomiting and the
whining goes on and on right through you. And Nava was already talking. . .
.
". . . so that's what happened," Nava was saying, "the deadlings took
us along in the night, and they can't see very well at night. Blind as bats,
anyone'll tell you that, even that Humpy, though he doesn't belong here,
he's from the village that was next to ours, not this one of ours where you
and I live now, but ours where I lived with mam, so you can't know Humpy, in
his village everything's covered in mushrooms, the spawn fell and that's
something not everybody likes, Humpy went away from the village straight
away. It's the Accession, he says, and now there's no place for people in
the village. . . . So-o-o. There was no moon that night and they probably
lost the track, anyway they all bunched together, us in the middle, and it
got so hot, you couldn't breathe. . . ."
Kandid looked at her. She was lying on her back, legs crossed, arms
folded behind her head. Only her lips moved endlessly, and from time to time
her eyes flashed in the half darkness. She went on talking even when the old
man came in and seated himself at the table. He drew a pot toward him,
sniffed at it noisily and with a slurp set to. At that Kandid got up and
with his palms wiped the night sweat from his body. The old man was champing
and slobbering, not taking his eyes from the bin with the lid protecting it
from mold. Kandid took the pot away and set it next to Nava to stop her
talking. The old man sucked his teeth comprehensively.
"Not very tasty," he said, "it's the same everywhere you go these days.
And that path's all grown over I used to go along; I used it a lot too, I
went to the training there and just bathing, I often went bathing in those
days, there was a lake there, now it's just a swamp and it's dangerous but
somebody still goes along there otherwise how come there's so many drowned
bodies? And reeds. I can ask anybody: how come there's paths through the
reeds? And nobody can tell me, and no more they ought. What have you got
there in that bin? If it's berries in soak I'll have them, I love soaked
berries, but if it's something of yesterday's then it doesn't matter, I
won't eat leavings, you can eat your own leavings." He paused, looking from
Kandid to Nava and back again. Getting no answer he went on:
"You can't sow anymore where the reeds have grown over. They used to
sow there before. They had to for the Accession, and they took everything to
Clay Clearing, they still take it there but they don't leave it on the
clearing, they bring it back. I told them they shouldn't, but they don't