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

where I want to go. Where I want to be isn't the Reeds." Hopalong was
listening and nodding. "I want to go to the City. We've often spoken of it
before I told you yesterday I wanted to go to the City. I told you the day
before I wanted to to the City. I said a week ago I wanted to go there. You
told me you knew the way to the city. You said that yesterday. And the day
before. Not to the Reeds, to the City. I don't want to go to the Reeds
[don't let me get mixed up, he thought, maybe I'm mixed up already. Not the
Reeds, the City. The City and not the Reeds]. The City, not the Reeds," he
repeated aloud. "Understand? Tell me about the road to the City. Not to the
Reeds, to the City. Still better, let's go to the City together. Not to the
Reeds together, together to the City."
He stopped. Hopalong started rubbing his sore knee again.
"Likely when they cut your head off, Dummy, something got damaged in
there. Like my leg. It used to be just an ordinary leg like anybody else's,
then once I was going through the Anthills at night, carrying an ant queen
and I put this foot in a hollow tree and now the leg's twisted. Why it's
twisted nobody knows, but it doesn't walk straight, and that's a fact. But
it'll get me to the Anthills. And I'll take you along. What I don't get is
why you told me to get food ready for the trip-- the Anthills is only a
stone's throw from here."
He looked at Kandid, floundered, mouth open.
"Of course you don't want to go to the Anthills, do you? Where is it,
now? I know, the Reeds. Well I can't go there, I'd never make it. See how
twisted this leg is? Listen, Dummy, what is it you've got against going to
the Anthills? Let's go there, eh? I've never been there once since that day,
maybe the hills aren't there anymore. Let's have a look for that hollow
tree, what say?"
He'll sidetrack me, I know it, thought Kandid. He leaned over on his
side and rolled a pot over to him.
"Good pot you've got here," he said, "I don't remember when I saw a pot
as good as this ... so you'll take me to the City? You told me nobody knows
the road to the City except you. Let's go to the City, what do you think,
will we make it?"
"Make it? Course we'll make it! To the City, of course we will. And you
have seen pots as good as these, know where? The funny folk make them like
that. They don't grow them, you know, they make them out of clay, they're
not far from Clay Clearing, I told you: left away from me and past the two
stones as far as Mushroom Village, only nobody lives there anymore so
there's no sense in going. Why should we? Haven't we seen mushrooms before?
Even when my leg was all right I never went to Mushroom Village, I only know
the funny folk live two ravines past there. Yes ... we could go tomorrow,
yes. . . . Listen, Dummy, let's not go there eh? I don't like those
mushrooms. There's mushrooms in our part of the forest, that's different,
you can eat them, they taste good. Over there they're sort of green and they
smell rotten. Why do you want to go there? You'll bring spawn back with you
as well. We'd better go to the City. A lot nicer. Only we can't go tomorrow,
there's food to get together and we'll have to find out the way--or do you
know the way? If you do, I won't need to ask. In fact I can't think who to
ask. Maybe the elder knows --what do you think?"
"Don't you know the way to the City yourself?" asked Kandid. "You know