p_zombie: переводы

→“There you are!”

→The faint voice of a young child worked its way into the deepest of the grow pits. It reached all the way to the cool plots of soil where lights no longer burned and things no longer grew. There, Jimmy Parker sat alone atop the lifeless soil and near to the memory of an old friend.

→Some of the unevenness was from the chunks of concrete that’d fallen inside – the rest was just how the floor stood. It appeared as though it’d been gouged out by the claws of a giant.

→“Careful,” she told the others behind her. “The ground’s not even.”

→“Must be a thousand years old.”

→The excavator bucked and there was the clang of metal on metal. Juliette steered the punching jaws to the side as more bones of rebar appeared in the white flesh of concrete. She had already gouged out a veritable crater in the outer silo wall. A first row of rebar hung jagged overhead, the ends smooth like melted candles where she’d taken a blowtorch to them. Two more feet of concrete and another row of the iron rods had followed, the silo walls thicker than she’d imagined. With numb limbs and frayed nerves she guided the machine forward on its tracks, the wedge‑shaped piston chewing at the stone between the rods. If she hadn’t seen the schematic for herself – if she didn’t know there were other silos out there – she would’ve given up already. It felt as though she were chewing through the very earth itself. Her arms shook, her hands a blur. This was the wall of the silo she was attacking, ramming it with a mind to pierce through the damn thing, to bore clear through to the outside.

→Juliette swallowed the grit and chalk accumulating in her mouth and concentrated on the crumbling wall. There was another possibility, one she couldn’t help but consider. Good mechanics and miners had died because of her. Brutal fighting had broken out when she’d refused to clean. How many of these men and women watching her dig had lost a loved one, a best friend, a family member? How many of them blamed her? She couldn’t possibly be the only one.

→The vibrations could be felt in her teeth. Every bone and joint in her body shuddered, and old wounds ached with reminders. Off to the side, the miners who normally manned the excavator watched unhappily. Juliette turned her head from the powdered concrete and saw the way they stood with their arms crossed over their wide chests, their jaws set in rigid frowns, angry perhaps for her appropriating their machine. Or maybe over the taboo of digging where digging was forbidden.

→“Because I’ve got a feeling that nothing good will come of this.”

→“Why is that?”

→“I believe you. I think the best thing you can do right now is just keep your fingers crossed for us.”

→“I wish she would come around. I really do want to help.”

→“I’m just telling you what she thinks.”

→“It is. It’s me. The machines do something with my voice.”

→“That’s just it… she doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t even believe you’re the same person every time.”

→“If it’s going to cause trouble, I should know about it. I’m here to help. I can keep heads turned away–”

→“Because I’m not pleased. I’ve tried to talk her out of this. But she can be a bit… obstinate at times.”

→“What makes you think that?”

→“I’d rather not say. I don’t think you’d be pleased.”

→“Working on what?”