"David Brin - Senses Three and Six" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

My next exhalation feels like a sigh. The song ends and so does the set. I look
around and everything is peaceful, but I still check twice. When I was in the service I
used to be able to smell trouble. Now I have to use my eyes.
Now, stop that. Don't think about the service! What's gotten into you, anyway?
I'm tired of yelling at myself. What a rotten day.
I turn to talk to Elise... Now, what's she got that look on her face for? What is it,
amazement? Hope? Fear?
Oh, boy. What I just said.
Think... Father... I never mentioned my father before, though she used to try to
draw me out about my past.
And the Institute! And music, my childhood... the piano.
There is a haze in front of me, a barrier of palpable grief. It hangs like a portcullis,
cutting off escape. By touch I grab up the beer and swallow to hide the turmoil on
my face. Think. Think.
The band's name she'll bleep out. Probably thinks it's dirty. Must recoup the rest.
How? Make the Institute... "the Institution"?... A place for delinquents? Father
could become "Father Murphy," a kindly priest...
I can envision my old man grinning at me now. "See?" he'd say. "See how hard it
is to maintain a good lie?"
I put the beer down without looking at her. "I'm going for a walk. Get some air.
Tell Joey I'll be right back, okay?"
I can see out the corner of my eye that she nods. I try to walk straight on my way
out the door.
... Her eyes were gray... When she laughed it felt like my chest was a kite and
I'd light up into the sky... Parmin introduced us--I never knew a woman like her
could exist...
"Go," he said.
"But Parmin, Janie has her own work to do, and my team is expecting those
B-1 and Trident parts to be integrated into the ships ..."
"No. Your deputies can take over for a time, while the two of you go for a
honeymoon. Am I not the expert? Have I not been watching your species for twenty
of your generations? I will not have two of my department heads distracted later,
while things are approaching completion.
"Go, Brad. Look into each other's eyes, make love, get a baby started. The child
will be born on a new world ..."


I rest my head against the cool, damp bricks. Around back of the Yankee Dollar,
near the garbage cans, I try to keep from crying out loud.
The pain is hot. A searing, almost hormonal rejection, as if my body were trying
to throw off a revolting insertion... a transplanted organ, or an alien idea. The agony
is dull and sweaty, with a faint delusional quality, and the rejected organ, I realize, is
my own mind.
My hands grope against the wall. Fingers dig into the recessed lines of mortar that
surround each of the bricks, my anchors. The texture is hard, yet crumbly. Little
fragments break off under my fingernails.
The gritty coolness crackles against my brow as I roll it against the masonry...
feeling the solidity of the building.
It is comforting, that solidity. Good heavy brick. Bound by steel rods and thick
goops of cement that permeate and bond--to hold up the roof. To stand. It's