[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.” I said nothing.What could I say? We were sitting on the sofa in my rooms.They were nothing like as splendid as Bren’s.“I don’t know when it started,” he said.“For a long time I thought I hated him when he died, because he died, poor bastard.Now I think it might have started earlier.You mustn’t blame me.” He was suddenly plaintive.“I’m sure he hated me, too.It was neither of our faults.”)“They must have suspected what would happen, you know,” Bren said.“The Ambassadors.It was always the oddballs who seemed to risk.unplaiting.just enough to make a few Ariekei oratees.Those were the ones they restrained.Other sorts of troublemakers went AWOL or native.”“You think they knew?” I said.“And who went what?”“They must have hoped EzRa were a drug,” he said.“So they’d affect one or two of the Hosts and not be usable.One in the eye for Bremen.They’ve all been very concerned about who was calling what shots, what agendas were being forced, since they heard EzRa were coming.”“I know,” I said.“But Bremen must’ve known too, if this has happened before.Why would they send them.?”“Known about oratees, you mean? Why would we tell Bremen about that? I don’t know what they had in mind, but this, letting EzRa speak, was the Embassy’s riposte, I think.Not that they expected this, though.Not like this.Language like this, right there but so impossible, so doping, that EzRa are infecting every, single, Host.All of which are spreading the word.All hooked on the new Ambassador.”OUR EVERYDAY pantheon gone needy, desperate for hits of Ez and Ra speaking together, fermenting Language into some indispensable brew of contradiction, insinuation and untethered meaning.We were quartered in an addict city.That procession I’d seen had been craving.“What happens now?” I said.It was very quiet in the room.There were hundreds of thousands of Ariekei in the city.Maybe millions.I didn’t know.We knew hardly anything, at all.Their heads were all made of Language.EzRa spoke it and changed it.Every Host, everywhere, would become hardwired with need, do anything, for the blatherings of a newly trained bureaucrat.“Sweet Jesus Pharotekton Christ light our way,” I said.“It is,” said Bren, “the end of the world.”10THE ARIEKEI told us how it would be.I was ahead of this curve, but it didn’t take long for the rest of the Embassytowners to understand that the Hosts were junkies, though they may not have known how or why.I suspect there was a power struggle in the Embassy, that some would have tried, out of habit, without rationale, to wall up information.They didn’t win.The streets of Embassytown were something between carnival and apocalypse: moods of ending; hysteria; happiness, or its giddy approximation.Constables apprehended people walking determinedly toward the edge of town, in biorigging that might let them breathe the city air.“You’re going nowhere!” the officers said.“Get that off.People are dying.” Some would-be city voyagers must have got through.Embassytowners wanting something from the Hosts.Pointless—the Ariekei wouldn’t perceive them as people, but as the meat belongings of Ambassadors.I was able to bluff my way back into the Embassy.Seeing the way the Ambassadors were scurrying I felt for a moment almost protective of them.They didn’t question me.Even JasMin seemed to have forgotten they disliked me.One of EdGar gave me a kiss, to my surprise.I couldn’t see his doppel.I saw the discomfort in Ed or Gar’s eyes, from stretching their link’s field.“Where.?” I said.“Coming, coming.” Being so separated must have made it hard to concentrate.We didn’t say much until his doppel turned a corridor corner and joined us.“Have you been into the city?” I said.(“Of course.” “No one’ll talk to us.”) “D’you know what’s happening?” (“No.” “No.”) “Where’s EzRa? Where’s Wyatt?” (“Don’t know.” “Don’t care.”)“You don’t know where EzRa are?” I said.“After they caused all this shit? So what, you’ve just left them to fucking conspire?”“Conspire?” Ed and Gar laughed.“They won’t even talk to each other
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Tematy
IndexCidney Swanson [Saving Mars Saving Mars (epub)
Christine Wood [Life Plan 01] A Life Plan Without You (epub)
Cheryl McIntyre [Infinitely Infinitely (epub)
Clair Delaney [Coral 01] Coral (epub)
Christine Cody [Bloodlands 01 Bloodlands (epub)
Christina Ross [Unleash Me, A Unleash Me, Vol 3 (epub)
Christine Flynn [The Hunt for Once Upon a Christmas Eve (epub
Christian Fletcher [The Left Left on the Brink (epub)
Christopher G Nuttall [Royal The Royal Sorceress (epub)
Tołstoj Lew Wojna i pokój cz. III i IV