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Wolfe, Gene / Вулф, Джин - Собрание сочинений (222 произведения) [1951-2023, fb2/epub, ENG]

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Gene Wolfe / Джин Вулф - Собрание сочинений
Годы выпуска: 1951-2023 г.
Автор: Gene Wolfe / Джин Вулф
Язык: Английский
Формат: fb2/epub
Качество: OCR/eBook

Описание:
Джин Родман Вулф — американский автор, которого многие критики и коллеги провозглашают величайшим фантастом современности.
С конца 1960-х годов рассказы Вулфа регулярно появляются в журналах и сборниках, в том числе — в серии антологий «Орбита» под редакцией Деймона Найта.
В начале 1970-х Вулф создает книги, сразу же признанные шедеврами: триптих научно-фантастических повестей «Пятая голова Цербера» (1972) и почти реалистический роман «Покой» (1976), который при внимательном прочтении оказывается романом мистическим. Уже ранние романы Вулф, следом за почитаемым Набоковым, выстраивает как сложную систему ловушек для читателя: понять, что происходит на самом деле, можно лишь собирая и сопоставляя мельчайшие улики, разбросанные по всему тексту.
Написанная в середине 1970-х повесть «Канун святой Катарины», действие которой происходило на умирающей Земле сверхдалекого будущего, так и не была опубликована. Она стала основой романа «Пыточных дел мастер» (1980), который, в свою очередь, оказался первым томом трилогии в жанре «научной фэнтези»... которая, неожиданно для самого автора, переросла в четырехтомник «Книга Нового Солнца» (1980-1983). Успех этого романа — и критический, и финансовый, — позволил Вулфу в 1984 году наконец-то уйти с поста редактора журнала и стать профессиональным писателем. Роман «И явилось Новое Солнце» (1987) завершает рассказ о судьбе Северьяна, подмастерья Гильдии Взыскующих Истины и Покаяния (в просторечии — гильдии палачей), который стал правителем великого Содружества, мессией и возжигателем Нового Солнца.
Второй цикл романов, к которому Вулф приступил в середине 1980-х годов, — «Латро в тумане» — так и остается неоконченным. Издатель отсоветовал писателю продолжать историко-мифологическое повествование о воине по прозванию Латро, живущем во время греко-персидских войн, — и Вулф вернулся к нему недавно, после 17-летнего перерыва.
Зато во вселенную Северьяна Вулф возвращался не раз: четыре тома «Книги Долгого Солнца» (1993-1996) и три тома «Книги Короткого Солнца» (1999-2001) описывают события, происходившие незадолго до начала «Книги Нового Солнца», но — в другой звездной системе. Финал же аккуратно увязывает все двенадцать томов в единое целое.
Время от времени Вулф пишет и одно-двухтомные романы, в которых — особенно в последние годы — обыгрывает привычные жанровые клише. Так, «Вид на замок» (1990) переносит события артуровского эпоса в современный Иллинойс, «Рыцарь-чародей» (2003-2004) — опыт героической фэнтези, название же «Пират» (2007) говорит само за себя. Не забывает Вулф и о короткой форме — сотни его рассказов и повестей собраны в дюжину сборников.

Нил Гейман, друг и соавтор Джина Вулфа, представил читателям девять правил чтения его книг. Вот они:
1) Слепо доверьтесь тексту. Все ответы — там.
2) Не доверяйте тексту ни на грош, нет — ни на полгроша. Этот текст — штука ненадежная, коварная, того и гляди, взорвется прямо в руках.
3) Перечитывайте. Со второго раза вам понравится больше. С третьего — еще больше. Да и в любом случае книжки незаметно меняются, пока вы не смотрите. При первом чтении «Покой» показался мне тихим элегичным мемуаром. В роман ужасов он превратился только со второго или третьего раза.
4) Там живут волки, рыщут у слов за спиной. Иногда они проглядывают на странице, иногда ждут, пока вы закроете книгу. Мускусный волчий запах порой маскируется ароматом розмарина. Только имейте в виду, что это не нынешние волки, серой тенью крадущиеся по пустырям. Это древние оборотни, огромные волки-одиночки, которые могут выстоять против медведя гризли.
5) Читать Джина Вулфа — опасное занятие. Сродни метанию ножей. Можно остаться без пальцев, ушей или глаз. Джина это устраивает. Джин-то и метает ножи.
6) Расположитесь поудобнее. Заварите побольше чаю. Повесьте на дверь табличку «Не беспокоить». Начинайте с первой страницы.
7) Умные писатели бывают двух типов. Одни выпячивают свой ум, а другим совершенно незачем его выпячивать. Джин Вулф — из вторых, причем интеллект для него не главное, главное — рассказать историю. Он умен не для того, чтобы выставить вас дураками, а для того, чтобы вы тоже поумнели.
8) Он там был. Он все видел. Он знает, чье отражение видели в зеркале той ночью.
9) Будьте готовы к тому, что придется учиться.
01 A Borrowed Man 2015, epub, ISBN: 978-1-4668-7799-3, Tor
02 Interlibrary Loan 2020, epub, ISBN: 978-1-250-24268-6, Tor
01 - The Shadow of the Torturer / Пыточных дел мастер, 1980, fb2, ISBN: 0-671-25325-5, Simon & Schuster
02 - The Claw of the Conciliator / Коготь Миротворца, 1981, fb2, ISBN: 0671413708, Timescape Books
03 - The Sword of the Lictor / Меч ликтора, 1982, fb2, ISBN: 0-671-45450-1, Timescape / Pocket Books
04 - The Citadel of the Autarch / Цитадель Автарха, 1983, epub
05 - The Urth of the New Sun / И явилось Новое Солнце, 1987, fb2, ISBN: 0-312-93033-X, Tor
Shadow and Claw 2011, epub, ISBN: 9781429966276, Orb
01 - The Shadow of the Torturer / Пыточных дел мастер
02 - The Claw of the Conciliator / Коготь Миротворца
Sword and Citadel 2011, epub, ISBN: 9781429966313, Orb
03 - The Sword of the Lictor / Меч ликтора
04 - The Citadel of the Autarch / Цитадель Автарха
The Complete Book of the New Sun 2017, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-250-17911-1, Tor
01 - The Shadow of the Torturer / Пыточных дел мастер
02 - The Claw of the Conciliator / Коготь Миротворца
03 - The Sword of the Lictor / Меч ликтора
04 - The Citadel of the Autarch / Цитадель Автарха
05 - The Urth of the New Sun / И явилось Новое Солнце
Litany of the Long Sun / Литания Долгого Солнца 1994, epub, ISBN: 9780312872915, Orb Books, 2000
01 - Nightside the Long Sun / Ночь Долгого Солнца
02 - Lake of the Long Sun / Озеро Долгого Солнца
Epiphany of the Long Sun / Явление Долгого Солнца 1997, epub, ISBN: 978-0-312-86072-1, Orb Books, 2000
03 - Calde of the Long Sun / Тепло Долгого Солнца
04 - Exodus From the Long Sun / Исход из Долгого Солнца
01 - On Blue's Waters / На воде Голубой, 1999, epub, ISBN: 9780312866143, Tor
02 - In Green's Jungles / В джунглях Зеленой, 2000, fb2, ISBN: 0-312-87315-8, Tor
03 - Return to the Whorl / Возвращение в Хорл, 2001, epub, ISBN: 9780312873646, Tor, 2002
01 - Soldier of the Mist / Воин тумана, 1986, fb2; 2012, epub, eISBN: 9781466828513, Tor
02 - Soldier of Arete / Воин арете, 2012, epub, eISBN: 9781466828254, Tor
03 - Soldier of Sidon / Солдат Сидона, 2006, epub, ISBN: 9780765355881, Tor, 2010
01 - The Knight / Рыцарь, 2005, fb2, ISBN: 0-765-31348-0, Tor; 2012, epub (retail), ISBN: 9781429915519, Tor
02 - The Wizard / Чародей, 2004, epub, ISBN: 978-0-7653-1201-3, Tor
Operation Ares 1970, epub, ISBN: 0-425-01858-X, Berkley Medallion
The Fifth Head of Cerberus / Пятая голова Цербера, 1972, fb2, ISBN: 0-684-12830-6, Charles Scribner's Sons; 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4299-6633-7, Orb
Peace / Покой, 1975, epub, ISBN: 978-0-575-07376-0, Gollancz / Orion, 2002
The Devil in a Forest 2012, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4668-2827-8, Orb
Free Live Free, 1984, fb2; 1986, epub, ISBN: 0-812-55813-8, Tor
There Are Doors, 1988, fb2; 2012, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4668-2824-7, Orb
Castleview 2011, epub, eISBN: 9781429966689, Orb
Pandora by Holly Hollander, 1990, fb2; 2011, epub, eISBN 9781429966795, Tor
Pirate Freedom / Пират, 2007, epub, ISBN: 978-1-4299-2522-8, Tor
An Evil Guest, 2008, epub, ISBN: 978-0-7653-2133-6, Tor
The Sorcerer's House, 2010, ISBN: 9780765324580, Tor
Home Fires, 2011, epub, eISBN: 978-1-4299-9158-2, Tor
The Land Across, 2013, fb2, ISBN: 978-0-7653-3595-1, Tor; 2013, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4668-2635-9, Tor
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories 2011, epub, ISBN: 9781429966801, Orb
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories / Остров доктора Смерти и другие рассказы
Alien Stones
La Befana
The Hero as Werwolf
Three Fingers
The Death of Dr. Island / Смерть доктора Острова
Feather Tigers
Hour of Trust
Tracking Song / Песнь преследования
The Toy Theater / Марионетки
The Doctor of Death Island / Доктор острова Смерти
Cues
The Eyeflash Miracles
Seven American Nights
The Best of Gene Wolfe / Джин Вулф - лучшее 2009, fb2; 2009, epub, ISBN: 978-0-7653-2135-0, Tor
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories / Остров доктора Смерти и другие рассказы
The Toy Theater / Марионетки
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
Beech Hill
The Recording / Звукозапись
Hour of Trust
The Death of Dr. Island / Смерть доктора Острова
La Befana
Forlesen
Westwind
The Hero as Werwolf
The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton
Straw
The Eyeflash Miracles
Seven American Nights
The Detective of Dreams
Kevin Malone
The God and His Man
On the Train
From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton
Death of the Island Doctor
Redbeard
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun
Parkroads—a Review
Game in the Pope’s Head
And When They Appear
Bed and Breakfast
Petting Zoo / Родерик в зоопарке
The Tree Is My Hat / Моя шляпа - дерево
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
A Cabin on the Coast
Storeys from the Old Hotel 2011, epub, eISBN: 9781429967341, Orb
The Green Rabbit from S'Rian
Beech Hill
Sightings at Twin Mounds
Continuing Westward
Slaves of Silver
The Rubber Bend
Westwind
Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee
The Packerhaus Method
Straw
The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton
To the Dark Tower Came
Parkroads—A Review
The Flag
Alphabet
A Criminal Proceeding
In Looking-Glass Castle
Cherry Jubilee
Redbeard
A Solar Labyrinth
Love, Among the Corridors
Checking Out
Morning-Glory
Trip, Trap
From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton / Из рабочего стола Гилмера С. Мертона
Civis Laputus Sum
The Recording / Звукозапись
Last Day
Death of the Island Doctor / Смерть островного доктора
On the Train
In the Mountains
At the Volcano's Lip
In the Old Hotel
Choice of the Black Goddess
Endangered Species / Вымирающие виды, 2004, fb2, ISBN: 0-765-31033-3, Orb; 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4299-6621-4, Tor
Introduction
A Cabin on the Coast
The Map
Kevin Malone
The Dark of the June
The Death of Hyle
From the Notebook of Dr. Stein
Thag
The Nebraskan and the Nereid
In the House of Gingerbread
The Headless Man / Безголовый
The Last Thrilling Wonder Story
House of Ancestors
Our Neighbour by David Copperfield
When I Was Ming the Merciless
The God and His Man
The Cat
War Beneath the Tree
Eyebem
The HORARS of War / УЖОСы войны
The Detective of Dreams
Peritonitis
The Woman Who Loved the Centaur Pholus
The Woman the Unicorn Loved
The Peace Spy
All the Hues of Hell
Procreation
Lukora
Suzanne Delage
Sweet Forest Maid
My Book
The Other Dead Man
The Most Beautiful Woman on the World
The Tale of the Rose and the Nightingale (And What Came of It)
Silhouette
Castle of Days 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4299-6624-5, Orb
Gene Wolfe's Book of Days (Introduction)
Date Due
How the Whip Came Back
Of Relays and Roses
Paul's Treehouse
St. Brandon (Excerpt from "Peace")
Beautyland
Car Sinister
The Blue Mouse
How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion
The Adopted Father
Forlesen
An Article About Hunting
The Changeling / Подменыш
Many Mansions
Against the Lafayette Escadrille / Против эскадрильи Лафайета
Three Million Square Miles
The War Beneath the Tree
La Befana
Melting
The Feast of Saint Catherine
Helioscope / Гелиоскоп
Sun of Helioscope
Hands and Feet
Words Weird and Wonderful
Onomastics, The Study of Names
Cavalry in the Age of the Autarch
These Are the Jokes
The Rewards of Authorship
The Castle of the Otter
Beyond the Castle of the Otter
Lone Wolfe
1. Writers
    Peace of My Mind
    Algis Budrys I
    Algis Budrys II
    From a Letter to Nancy Kress, Dated September 21, 1987
    Review of "The Outline of Sanity: A Biography of G. K. Chesterton" by Alzina Stone Dale
    Explaining Nancy Kress
    Introduction for "Episodes of the Argo"
    From a Letter to Ron Antonucci, Dated June 22, 1983
    From a Chain Letter to George R. R. Martin and Greg Benford, Dated July 10, 1982
    Nebula Awards Speech, April 24, 1982
    Vunce Around der Momma's Kitchen py Hans Katzenjammer
    From the Desk of Gilmer C. Merton / Из рабочего стола Гилмера С. Мертона
2. Writing
    Where I Get My Ideas
    An Idea That...
    From a Letter to Sharon Baker, Dated February 25, 1983
    From a Letter to Patty Bowne, Dated Memorial Day, 1983
    From a Letter to Sharon Butler, Dated November 11, 1983
    From a Letter to Ellen Kushner, Dated April 2, 1985
    Achieving Dramatic Scenes: The Cat in the Starfleet's Attic
    The Writer's Tool Kit
    A Few Points About Knife Throwing
3. Books
    The Right of Things to Come
    The Ethos of Elfland
    How Science Will Conquer the World for Fantasy
    From a House on the Borderland
    Secrets of the Greeks
    Aussiecon Two Guest of Honor Speech
    From a Letter to Larry McCaffery, Dated October 1, 1987
    Kipling's Influence
    Where Castle?
    The Pirates of Florida and Other Implausibilities
Strange Travelers 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-4299-8249-8, Orb
Bluesberry Jam
One-Two-Three for Me
Counting Cats in Zanzibar
The Death of Koshchei the Deathless (a tale of old Russia)
No Planets Strike
Bed and Breakfast
To the Seventh
Queen of the Night
And When They Appear
Flash Company
The Haunted Boardinghouse
Useful Phrases
The Man in the Pepper Mill
The Ziggurat / Зиккурат
Ain't You 'Most Done?
Innocents Aboard 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 9781429915502, Orb
The Tree Is My Hat / Моя шляпа — дерево
The Old Woman Whose Rolling Pin Is the Sun
The Friendship Light
Slow Children at Play
Under Hill
The Monday Man
The Waif
The Legend of Xi Cygnus
The Sailor Who Sailed After the Sun
How the Bishop Sailed to Inniskeen
Houston, 1943
A Fish Story
Wolfer
The Eleventh City
The Night Chough
The Wrapper
A Traveler in Desert Lands
The Walking Sticks
Queen
Pocketsful of Diamonds
Copperhead / Медноголовая
The Lost Pilgrim
Starwater Strains 2011, epub (retail), ISBN: 9781429915557, Orb
Viewpoint / Точка зрения
Rattler (with Brian Hopkins)
In Glory Like Their Star
Calamity Warps
Graylord Man's Last Words
Shields of Mars
From the Cradle
Black Shoes
Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?
Pulp Cover
Of Soil and Climate
The Dog of the Drops
Mute / Беззвучный режим
Petting Zoo / Родерик в зоопарке
Castaway
The Fat Magician
Hunter Lake
The Boy Who Hooked the Sun
Try and Kill It
Game in the Pope's Head
Empires of Foliage and Flower
The Arimaspian Legacy
The Seraph From Its Sepulcher
Lord of the Land / Владыка царства
Golden City Far
The Dead Man and Other Horror Stories 2023, epub (retail), ISBN: 978-1-64524-121-8, Subterranean Press
The Dead Man
The Hero As Werwolf
Many Mansions
The Detective of Dreams
Redbeard
In the House of Gingerbread
The Other Dead Man
The Friendship Light
The Haunted Boardinghouse
Lord of the Land / Владыка царства
The Seraph from Its Sepulcher
Queen of the Night
The Death of Koshchei the Deathless: A Tale of Old Russia
Bed and Breakfast
The Walking Sticks
Mute / Беззвучный режим
My Name Is Nancy Wood
Talk of Mandrakes
Black Shoes
Hunter Lake
Prize Crew
Monster
The Card
The Vampire Kiss
Innocent
Josh
Why I Was Hanged
Uncaged / На свободе
The Case of the Vanishing Ghost 1951, fb2
The Dead Man 1965, fb2
Trip, Trap 1967, fb2
The Changeling / Подменыш 1968, fb2
Paul's Treehouse 1969, fb2
A Method Bit in "B" 1970, fb2
How the Whip Came Back 1970, fb2
Morning-Glory 1970, fb2
Remembrance to Come 1970, fb2
Sonya, Crane Wessleman, and Kittee 1970, fb2
Alien Stones 1972, fb2
Against the Lafayette Escadrille / Против эскадрильи Лафайета 1972, fb2
Continuing Westward 1973, fb2
How I Lost the Second World War and Helped Turn Back the German Invasion 1973, fb2
Melting 1974, fb2
The Rubber Bend 1974, fb2
Many Mansions 1977, fb2
To the Dark Tower Came 1977, fb2
At the Point of Capricorn 1983, fb2
John K. (Kinder) Price 1984, fb2
Mary Beatrice Smoot Friarly, SPV 1984, fb2
The Arimaspian Legacy 1987, fb2
The Ziggurat / Зиккурат 1995, fb2
Counting Cats in Zanzibar 1996, fb2
The Man in the Pepper Mill 1996, fb2
A Traveler in Desert Lands 1999, fb2
A Fish Story 1999, fb2
Copperhead / Медновласая 2001, fb2
Queen 2001, fb2
Viewpoint / Точка зрения 2001, fb2
The Waif 2002, fb2
Under Hill 2002, fb2
Castaway 2003, fb2
Easter Sunday 2003, fb2 (сетевая публикация)
Hunter Lake 2003, fb2
Talk of Mandrakes 2003, fb2
Prize Crew 2004, fb2
The Lost Pilgrim 2004, fb2
Comber / Крен 2005, fb2
Sob in the Silence / Плач в темноте 2006, fb2
Bea and Her Bird Brother 2006, fb2
Green Glass 2007, fb2
Memorare / Вспомни 2007, fb2
The Magic Animal / Волшебные животные 2007, fb2
Unrequited Love 2007, fb2
Frostfree 2013, fb2
The Sea of Memory 2013, fb2
Chapter 1
THE VILLAGE OF SALTUS
Morwenna’s face floated in the single beam of light, lovely and framed in hair dark as my cloak; blood from her neck pattered to the stones. Her lips moved without speech. Instead I saw framed within them (as though I were the Increate, peeping through his rent in Eternity to behold the World of Time) the farm, Stachys her husband tossing in agony upon his bed, little Chad at the pond, bathing his fevered face.
Outside, Eusebia, Morwenna’s accuser, howled like a witch. I tried to reach the bars to tell her to be quiet, and at once became lost in the darkness of the cell. When I found light at last, it was the green road stretching from the shadow of the Piteous Gate. Blood gushed from Dorcas’s cheek, and though so many screamed and shouted, I could hear it pattering to the ground. Such a mighty structure was the Wall that it divided the world as the mere line between their covers does two books; before us now stood such a wood as might have been growing since the founding of Urth, trees as high as cliffs, wrapped in pure green. Between them lay the road, grown up in fresh grass, and on it were the bodies of men and women. A burning cariole tainted the clean air with smoke.
Five riders sat destriers whose hooked tushes were encrusted with lazulite. The men wore helmets and capes of indanthrene blue and carried lances whose heads ran with blue fire; their faces were more akin than the faces of brothers. On these riders, the tide of travelers broke as a wave on a rock, some turning left, some right. Dorcas was torn from my arms, and I drew Terminus Est to cut down those between us and found I was about to strike Master Malrubius, who stood calmly, my dog Triskele at his side, in the midst of the tumult. Seeing him so, I knew I dreamed, and from that knew, even while I slept, that the visions I had had of him before had not been dreams.
I threw the blankets aside. The chiming of the carillon in the Bell Tower was in my ears. It was time to rise, time to run to the kitchen pulling on my clothes, time to stir a pot for Brother Cook and steal a sausage — a sausage bursting, savory, and nearly burned — from the grill. Time to wash, time to serve the journeymen, time to chant lessons to myself before Master Palaemon’s examination.
I woke in the apprentices’ dormitory, but everything was in the wrong place: a blank wall where the round port should have been, a square window that should have been a bulkhead. The row of hard, narrow cots was gone, and the ceiling too low.
Then I was awake. Country smells — much like the pleasant odors of flower and tree that used to float across the ruined curtain wall from the necropolis, but mixed now with the hot reek of a stable — drifted through the window. The bells began again, ringing in some campanile not far away, calling the few who retained their faith to beseech the coming of the New Sun, though it was very early still, the old sun had hardly dropped Urth’s veil from his face, and save for the bells the village lay silent.
As Jonas had discovered the night before, our water-ewer held wine. I used some to rinse my mouth, and its astringency made it better than water; but I still wanted water to splash on my face and smooth my hair. Before sleeping I had folded my cloak, with the Claw at the center, to use for a pillow. I spread it now, and remembering how Agia had once tried to slip her hand into the sabretache on my belt, thrust the Claw into my boot-top.
Jonas still slept. In my experience, people asleep look younger than they do awake, but Jonas seemed older — or perhaps only ancient; he had the face, with straight nose and straight forehead, that I have often noted in old pictures. I buried the smoldering fire in its own ashes and left without waking him. By the time I had finished refreshing myself from the bucket of the inn-yard well, the street before the inn was no longer silent, but alive with hooves that splashed through the puddles left by the previous night’s rain, and the clacking of scimitar horns. Each animal was taller than a man, black or piebald, rolling-eyed and half blinded by the coarse hair that fell across its face.
Morwenna’s father, I remembered, had been a drover; it was possible this herd was his, though it seemed unlikely. I waited until the last lumbering beast had passed and watched the men ride by. There were three, dusty and common-looking, flourishing iron-tipped goads longer than themselves; and with them, their hard, watchful, low-bred dogs.
Inside the inn once more, I ordered breakfast and got bread warm from the oven, newly churned butter, pickled duck’s eggs, and peppered chocolate beaten to a froth. (This last a sure sign, though I did not know it then, that I was among people who drew their customs from the north.) Our hairless gnome of a host, who had no doubt seen me in conversation with the alcalde the night before, hovered over my table wiping his nose on his sleeve, inquiring about the quality of each dish as it was served — though they were all, in truth, very good — promising better food at supper, and condemning the cook, who was his wife. He called me sieur, not because he thought as they sometimes had in Nessus that I was an exultant incognito, but because a torturer here, as the efficient arm of the law, was a great person. Like most peons, he could conceive of no more than one social class higher than his own.
The first thing she did upon arising was count her money. The sun itself was barely up, the morning cool with the threatening freshness peculiar to the tropics, the freshness, she thought, that says, "Breathe deep of me while you can."
Three thousand and eighty-seven U.N. dollars left. It was all there. She pulled on the hot-pink underpants that had been the only ones she could find to fit her in Kota Kinabalu and hid the money as she had the day before. The same skirt and blouse as yesterday; there would be no chance to do more than rinse, wring out, and hang dry before they made land.
And precious little then, she thought; but that was wrong. With this much money she would have been able to board with an upper-class family and have her laundry micropored, rest, and enjoy a dozen good meals before she booked passage to Zamboanga.
Or Darwin. Clipping her shoes, she went out on deck.
He joined her so promptly that she wondered whether he had been listening, his ears attuned to the rattle and squeak of her cabin door. She said, "Good morning." And he, "The dawn comes up like thunder out of China across the bay. That's the only quote I've been able to think of. Now you're safe for the rest of the trip."
"But you're not," she told him, and nearly added
Doctor Johnson's observation that to be on a ship is to be in prison, with the added danger of drowning.
He came to stand beside her, leaning as she did against the rickety railing. "Things talk to you, you said that last night. What kind of things?"
She smiled. "Machines. Animals, too. The wind and the rain."
"Do they ever give you quotations?" He was big and looked thirty-five or a little past it, with a wide Irish mouth that smiled easily and eyes that never smiled at all.
"I'd have to think. Not often, but perhaps one has."
He was silent for a time, a time during which she watched the dim shadow that was a shark glide under the hull and back out again. No shark's ever talked to me, she thought, except him. In another minute or two he'll want to know the time for breakfast.
"I looked at a map once." He squinted at the sun, now half over the horizon. "It doesn't come up out of China when you're in Mandelay."
"Kipling never said it did. He said that happened on the road there. The soldier in his poem might have gone there from India. Or anywhere. Mapmakers colored the British Empire pink two hundred years ago, and two hundred years ago half Earth was pink."
He glanced at her. "You're not British, are you?"
"No, Dutch."
"You talk like an American."
"I've lived in the United States, and in England, too; and I can be more English than the British when I want to. I have heerd how many ord'nary veman one vidder's equal to, in pint 'o comin' over you. I think it's five-and-twenty, but I don't rightly know verther it a'n't more."
This time he grinned. "The real English don't talk like that."
"They did in Dickens's day, some of them."
"I still think you're American. Can you speak Dutch?"
"Gewiss, Narr!"
"Okay, and you could show me a Dutch passport. There are probably a lot of places where you can buy one good enough to pass almost anywhere. I still think you're American."
"That was German," she muttered, and heard the thrum of the ancient diesel-electric: "Dontrustim-don-trustim-dontrustim."
"But you're not German."
"Actually, I am."
He grunted. "I never thought you gave me your right name last night. What time's breakfast?"
She was looking out across the Sulu Sea. Some unknown island waited just below the horizon, its presence betrayed by the white dot of cloud forming above it. "I never thought you were really so anxious to go that you'd pay me five thousand to arrange this."
"There was a strike at the airport. You heard about it. Nobody could land or take off." Aft, a blackened spoon beat a frying pan with no pretense of rhythm.
1
THE LAND ACROSS


Like most countries it is accessible by road or railroad, air or sea. Even though all those are possible, they are all tough. Visitors who try to drive get into a tangle of unmarked mountain roads, roads with zits and potholes and lots of landslides. Most drivers who make it through (I talked about it with two of them in New York and another one in London) get turned back at the border. There is something wrong with their passports, or their cars, or their luggage. They have not got visas, which everybody told them they would not need. Some are arrested and their cars impounded. A few of the ones who are arrested never get out. Or anyhow, that is how it seems.
It just made me more determined than ever. There are no travel books about the land across the mountains. NONE! Not in any language I could find. I was going to be the first, and maybe I still will be. Only this book you are holding comes before my travel book. You would not believe how long I have been writing and rewriting this one in my head, especially when I was a prisoner of the Legion of the Light and when I was in prison, sitting around in a cell with Russ Rathaus. I was lucky, I cannot even tell you how lucky, that I was never taken prisoner by the Unholy Way. Thank God for that!
At first I tried to get in by air. Lufthansa has service, but there are only two flights a week. I booked twice and had both canceled. The third did not land at the capital, saying bad weather. It went straight on to Ankara.
I decided to go by train and flew to Vienna, a real knockout city where there are lots of first-rate clubs. (See my first book, Dreaming on the Danube.) After some swell evenings dancing in the clubs and okay nights at the good old Hotel Sacher, I caught the Orient Express headed for Slovakia. For the rest of the day our train wound its way through hills and woods.
A lot of Americans think all of Europe is like Rouen or Cologne, crawling with people. It is not really like that. There is a whole lot more wilderness in Europe than foreigners like us imagine, and there is more and more as you go east. I hardly ever saw a house among the hills I saw from the Orient Express. Where there were a few, they were half-timbered and had those high sharp roofs you get where there is lots of snow.
A porter who would not talk to me made the bed in my compartment. When he had gone, I stripped and washed the way I generally do on trains, with a washcloth I dunked in a hand basin of water. Now it seems to me that I must have been asleep a long time before I got into bed.
* * *
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