The White City

Начало книги

The moon was overhead, and Mary was on her back, staring up at its vast ivory seas.

‘Do you think,’ she said idly, ‘do you think I could fly there?’

‘No.’ Dalip, lying nearby, sounded definite, but she wasn’t so sure. She could see the shadows cast by the lunar mountains shift as they passed overhead, and if she reached up, she thought she might touch them.

She raised her hand, extending her fingers, stretching out. But all she felt was cool air, not the dry granularity of another world. She traced the curves of the craters, the lines of the rilles, and wondered.

‘Why not?’ She let her arm fall back and rested her wrist across her forehead.

‘The atmosphere’s only, what, eighty kilometres thick, and for almost nine-tenths of that it’s too thin to sustain life. The moon’s further away from Down than that. A lot further.’

‘Sure?’

‘Positive. Our moon is four hundred thousand kilometres away.’

‘Okay.’ She batted away a tiny flying thing that seemed intent on hovering between her nose and her top lip. ‘But what if it’s not like that here? What if, you know, magic?’

Читать дальше →