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Автор Ruthanna Emrys

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Table of Contents

About the Author

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This book is dedicated to:

MAX GOLDSTEIN—arrived in New York City from Russia, date unknown

IDA HACKER GOLDSTEIN—arrived in New York City from Russia, date unknown

GUSTAV FISCHER—arrived in New York City from Germany, date unknown

EDWARD ROSENBAUM—arrived in New York City from Bavaria, Germany ∼1850

ROSETTA HIRSCH ROSENBAUM—arrived in New York City from Bavaria, Germany ∼1850

HANNAH PLAUT STERN—arrived in New York City from Germany ∼1852

AARON STERN—arrived in New York City from Germany ∼1853

MORRIS WEISENFELD—arrived in New York City from Roumania sometime between 1897 and 1899

RACHEL FRIEDMAN WEISENFELD—arrived in New York City from an unknown origin, 1899

SOLOMON NEDELMAN—arrived in New York City from Chernobyl sometime between 1900 and 1906

ROSE ELMAN NEDELMAN—arrived in New York City from Russia sometime between 1904 and 1906

… and all my other immigrant ancestors.

His solid flesh had never been away,

For each dawn found him in his usual place,

But every night his spirit loved to race

Through gulfs and worlds remote from common day.

He had seen Yaddith, yet retained his mind,

And come back safely from the Ghooric zone,

When one still night across curved space was thrown

That beckoning piping from the voids behind.

—H. P. LOVECRAFT, “ALIENATION,” Fungi from Yuggoth

Why fades a dream?

That thought may thrive,

So fades the fleshless dream.

—PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR, “WHY FADES A DREAM?”

The shadow of the half-sphere curtains

down closely against my world, like a

doorless cage, and the stillness chained by

wrinkled darkness strains throughout the Uni-

verse to be free.

—YONE NOGUCHI, “AT NIGHT”

PROLOGUE

Nnnnnn-gt-vvv of the Outer Ones—May 1949:

There is a world—a planetoid, chosen for ease of camouflage among thousands like it—where wind whispers through air cold as the vacuum. The nearest star is a distant candle. Radar, radiation, subtle folds of gravity: these are the best ways to perceive the cities tucked into crevasses, the spiderweb bridges spanning jags of icy mountain.

The bridges, aeons old, were here when we arrived. They offered omen and reminder: Life persists everywhere. Life vanishes everywhere. Find it and listen, or it will pass unknown. I spread my wings, furl my claws, and spring from Yuggoth into the void behind and between worlds.