Free Fall. Laura Anne Gilman
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Название: Free Fall
Автор: Laura Anne Gilman
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Героическая фантастика
isbn: 9781408976098
isbn:
“I never wanted to kill anyone,” she said quietly. “I never wanted to fight when I could run, and I never wanted to run when I could just stay out of sight. I’m not a troublemaker or a troubleshooter. But we need to survive. We need to do more than survive. And we can’t do that if there are people out there who aren’t even willing to give us the respect of being people, in their eyes. And we can’t change their minds, that’s been proven already.”
P.B. shifted uncomfortably, causing the other three in the room to look at him. He glared back at them, then looked at the Retriever.
“That’s the one thing you never wanted to hear, Valere. You know it now. There is such a thing as justifiable violence. There is such a thing as a just war—or at least a necessary one. Necessary death. Necessary killing. There comes a time when you can’t run any more, because you’ve been running so long you’ve run out of anywhere to run to.”
Wren wanted to deny it. But the sludge stirred in her, and she felt the tarry sweetness on her tongue, and was stilled.
“And you know this because…?” Bonnie challenged him.
“Because I’ve been there, puppy. I’ve been there over and over again.”
Wren had asked P.B. how old he was, once. He had slid around answering her directly, but the implication had been that he was older than the normal human lifespan. She wondered, suddenly, how many times older.
“You?” Danny scoffed; the Fatae as a rule were less accepting of demon than Talent were, because the demon were a created species, their origins never spoken of except in speculative whispers. They didn’t have a clan or tribe or herd, they didn’t gather together—in fact, they seemed to dislike being in each others’ company—and not one of them looked like the other, except for the eyes all being that exact same shade of dark dried-blood-red. Danny didn’t mean to be insulting, Wren thought. It was just that the Fatae were used to thinking of demon as second-class members, without a history or tradition of their own.
“Me, faun. When you were still wobbling around on your hooves, trying to figure out what your tail was for.”
A faun’s tail was a sensitive subject, and Danny flushed under the baseball cap, but held his tongue.
“I’m not trying to be rude here,” Bonnie said, “but I’m going to be anyway, so what the hell. You’ve been in the thick of things since all this started. You’re the one who got Wren involved, stirred up the Fatae, got the word out. Got everyone sharing information. And you’re a demon—you’ve never avoided violence in your entire life. So what the hell do you know from running?”
Wren closed her eyes and counted to five. When she opened them again, nobody had moved, and P.B. was watching her.
“I am demon,” he said, finally. “What that means…The Fatae never wanted to know. The mages have forgotten.” Mages—the old term, the one only the Council used any more, and then only formally. The word sounded strangely right on the demon’s tongue. “For generations, we were content that way. It was better to be forgotten. Safer. No one could use us, then.”
You can ground in me. P.B.’s voice, offering her sanctuary, protection from overrush. It’s what I was created for.
Never without your permission, she had replied.
Her eyes were too dry to tear up in realization. Once, clearly, permission had not been sought. Or granted.
“But I am older than all of you put together. And I didn’t get that way by throwing myself under every passing trauma-train. When I hear marching boots, the sound of rifles, the screams of a mob…I run. I ran. From old Amsterdam. South Africa. From Germany. Over and over again. I ran.” His eyes couldn’t really have darkened; it had to be a trick of the light. “And people died, who might have lived, if I had taken a stand.
“But I lived. Lived, and came here. And if I had any brains left I would have run again.” He sounded so disgusted with himself, so totally P.B., that the spell he had been weaving with his words was broken, slightly, and Wren found that she could breathe again.
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