"Asaro, Catherine - Echea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asaro Catherine)

Kristine Kathryn Rusch: Echea
This story first appeared in AsimovТs
Science Fiction, July 1998. Nominated for
Best Novelette.

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From Asimov's

Echea, by
Kristine Kathryn Rusch

I can close my eyes and she appears in my
mind as she did the moment I first saw
her: tiny, fragile, with unnaturally pale
skin and slanted chocolate eyes. Her hair
was white as the moon on a cloudless
evening. It seemed, that day, that her
eyes were the only spot of color on her
haggard little face. She was seven, but
she looked three.

And she acted like nothing we had ever
encountered before.

Or since.

We had three children and a good life. We
were not impulsive, but we did feel as if
we had something to give. Our home was
large, and we had money; any child would
benefit from that.

It seemed to be for the best.

It all started with the brochures. We saw
them first at an outdoor cafщ near our
home. We were having lunch when we
glimpsed floating dots of color, a
fleeting childТs face. Both my husband and
I touched them only to have the displays
open before us:

The blank vista of the Moon, the Earth
over the horizon like a giant blue and
white ball, a looming presence, pristine
and healthy and somehow guilt-ridden. The
Moon itself looked barren, as it always
had, until one focused. And then one saw