Servants of the Map

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Andrea Barrett. Servants of the Map

Contents

Servants of the Map. 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

The Forest

Theories of Rain

Two Rivers. The Ruins

The Origins of the World

The Academy of Sorrow

Beautiful River

Lightning

Fire

The Mysteries of Ubiquitin

The Cure. 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Author’s Note

About the Author

Also by Andrea Barrett

Praise for Servants of the Map

Copyright

About the Publisher

Отрывок из книги

SERVANTS

OF THE MAP

.....

He dreams of a different kind of map, in shades of misty green. Where the heads of the Survey see the boundaries of states and tribes, here the watershed between India and China, there a plausible boundary for Kashmir, he sees plants, each kind in a range bounded by soil and rainfall and altitude and temperature. And it is this—the careful delineation of the boundaries of those ranges, the subtle links between them—that has begun to interest him more than anything else. Geographical botany, Dr. Hooker said. What grows where. Primulas up to this level, no higher; deodar here, stonecrops and rock jasmines giving way to lichens. Why do rhododendrons grow in Sikkim and not here? He might spend his life in the search for an answer.

When he and his crew gather with the other small parties, he’s reminded that no one shares his interests—at night his companions argue about the ebb and flow of politics, not plant life. The Sikh Wars and the annexation of the Punjab, the administration of Lord Dalhousie, the transfer of power from the East India Company to the Crown, the decisions of the regional revenue officers—it is embarrassing, how little all this interests him. Among the surveyors are military men who have served in the Burmese War, or in Peshawar; who survived the Mutiny or, in various mountains, that stormy year when supplies to the Survey were interrupted and bands of rebels entered Kashmir. He ought to find their stories fascinating. Germans and Russians and Turks and Chinese, empires clashing; Dogras and Sikhs, spies and informants—currents no one understands, secrets it might take a lifetime to unravel. Yet of all this, two stories only have stayed with him.

.....