"Casil,_Amy_Sterling_-_To_Kiss_the_Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Casil Amy Sterling)

"I see you," she said. "You've got a big nose."
"That's right, darlin'." The head turned. More shapes -- the technicians' faces, appeared. Hazy and wavering, but unmistakably concerned. "Hey, she's got me!" the counselor called to them.
"I haven't seen anyone in six years," Mel said.
"And my good-looking mug is the first! I'm touched," the counselor replied. The technicians were grinning. They were both young, close to Mel's age. One blond-seeming, though colors just didn't look the way she remembered, and the other darker, with a thin, nervous face. Another face appeared. Dark, pretty, soft and round, with large eyes and full lips.
"Hana," Mel said.
"Ah, that's right! You can see!" Hana wheeled a cart toward Mel. The technicians grinned, parting to allow Hana to approach, while the counselor stepped back, crossing his arms. Hana lifted the cover of a metal dish with a flourish.
Mel remembered what lobsters looked like. This lobster was huge, his eyes black dots on long stalks. Mel almost expected him to lift his claws and start snapping at her. He was bright red, she thought, but somehow the color didn't look right. Too vivid, perhaps, as if he was glowing. He glowed with heat, she realized. She saw it, rising in waves from his shell.
Hana removed a claw and cracked it. She worked a piece of hot white flesh from the claw and brought it to Mel's lips.
"Here's your taste of lobster," she said.
Mel took the soft flesh in her mouth and began to chew. It was silken and buttery, yielding to her tongue and her teeth. Beyond delicious. She closed her eyes, but the visor still worked -- she could still see. They were smiling at her, Hana looking proud, the technicians nodding. The counselor took a handkerchief from his pocket, and blew his nose, trumpeting loudly.
Mel swallowed the lobster. "I can't close my eyes," she said.
"Yes, you can," the blond technician said. "Tap your temple, on the left side."
Mel flailed around a bit, then managed to slap the side of her head with her thumb. Everything went dark.
Her heart leapt with sudden fear. Had she broken it? "Now I can't see."
"Do it again. Right side." This time, Mel struggled with her bad right arm, and struck a glancing blow against her cheek. Nothing happened. She gritted her teeth, and tried again. This time, she hit her temple. Everyone reappeared, including the lobster.
"It works," Mel told them.
The blond technician slapped his darker partner on the back. "I told you!"
"So," the counselor said, leaning forward, causing his face to expand like a strange balloon. "What would you like to do? We have a day or two before we go further. How about a play? Something at the Globe? Or a museum? Would you like to see some paintings? Sculptures?"
Mel shook her head. "No, I'm okay. Maybe a book. I would like to read, like I used to." Before the RP had gotten so bad, Mel had devoured every book she could get her hands on. Listening to books wasn't the same. It was nice, but not as satisfying. She thought of John. Sometimes he had read to her. Shakespeare; the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. One time, from _Alice in Wonderland_. She wanted to see John, but she was reluctant to say so, especially with the technicians there.
The counselor shook his head. "I didn't think you'd be so easy to please," he said.
"I already told Hana what I wanted," Mel said.
Hana stroked Mel's forehead. "Yes, and you've gotten your lobster. Go ahead, finish it all. He's five pounds."
The blond technician whistled under his breath. "A fortune," the other one said.
Hana began to feed Mel. Mel gorged, smiling with pleasure. She rested her hand on her stomach as the others began to eat the rest of the lobster, grinning and laughing. She couldn't possibly finish all of it. She was warmly happy, the ache in her head fading, as the others ate.
Mel felt sleepy, and she told Hana that she wanted to take a nap. She thanked the technicians, and the counselor, who shook her hand with a crushing grip, again reminding her of a cowboy. He needed a cowboy hat to complete the picture, but otherwise, she thought that he was perfect. She reminded herself to ask him the next day whether or not he was from Oklahoma, or Arizona, or one of those other cowboy places in the States.
Hana pushed Mel from the dayroom into the long corridor, which was not as long as Mel had thought, now that she could see it. It was lined with dull prints of horses and huntsmen. She wheeled Mel into her room. How small the room was. The bed was narrow, with four plump blue pillows at the head, topped with Mel's teddy bear. There were a few pictures tacked on a cork board to the right of the bed. The boys, Mel realized -- how tall they had grown. A sink, where Hana and the other nurses washed things. A narrow window looked out on the roadway, where she saw rows of blockhouses across the street. Mel had often heard children playing in the morning. Now she knew where they lived.
She saw a daisy in a small vase on a table by the window. Spit tray beside it. A small closet was open on the opposite side of the room. Mel saw a row of open gowns hanging inside the closet, all the same, striped blue and white. Fuzzy slippers rested below the hanging hems of the gowns, which Mel realized for the first time had teddy bear heads on them. Mum had brought them for her birthday -- Mel had instinctively disliked them and thought that the odd shapes she had felt on their toes represented defective workmanship, since Mum was always looking for a bargain. Mel looked down at her feet for the first time since she'd been able to see. She wore pale pink socks. Her feet were turned toward each other, and curled into themselves, like pictures she'd seen of Chinese women with their feet bound. They'd turned that way since she'd been blind. Above the doubled-over pink socks, her legs were the width of a broom handle, and dead, waxy white.
There was a mirror above the sink. A polished mirror, not glass, but steel.
Mel flailed about with her left arm. She couldn't reach her head.
"You take your nap now," Hana said. She left Mel in the middle of the room and went to the bed, getting the covers ready.
Mel stared at the mirror. If she moved a foot or two closer, she would be able to look into it.
"I'm sleepy," she said.
Hana took the voiceboard from her lap and put it on the table by the vase with the daisy. Hana turned back, and something in her expression told Mel that she had sensed what Mel was thinking.
"There's time for that later," Hana said.
Mel pushed the button on her chair which moved it forward, toward the mirror. Even though she didn't want to look, somehow she had to look. She gazed down at her stick legs a moment, then up to see her face in the mirror. Every bit of joy she had felt earlier, to see, and to taste, bled out of her. The visor was the least of it, like a big pair of blind metal sunglasses over her face. Bolted over the strange, barely-human landscape which had been her face.
"Ih-ih-hut-ssss-zzz," Mel said through her slack lips. She saw the wetness on her pocked chin before she felt it. Hana retrieved the voiceboard and put it gently on Mel's lap.
"It's Friendly Visitor day tomorrow," Mel said. "If John comes, tell him I have been taken for more implants," she told Hana. "Tell him I'm not coming back."
"Oh, luv," Hana said.
"Leave me," Mel replied. Then, after a few seconds, she added, "please." She looked at her wrist and noticed the bracelet. How could John have visited her? Spoken to her? Touched her? On the bracelet were four tiny square beads set among smaller seed beads, like colored pearls. W-W-J-D, she read on the squares.
Goodbye, John. Her lips trembled. She heard herself making noises. Goodbye. She flailed around until she struck her left temple with a strong whack, and everything went black. Tomorrow, she would tell the ISA man to take off the visor, and to stop everything. Part of her wanted to go into the ship, if only to get rid of her horrible face. Another part of her said that the stars would hate her. Recoil from her, and she would wander, cold and alone forever. Somehow, that seemed appealing, but no. She would stay in her place in her wheelchair. That was all she deserved. All that was needed.
She would tell Hana ... no. She would call herself. In the morning. She could see to go to the phone now. She would make sure that John knew he was no longer needed.
What would Jesus do? Jesus would weep.
* * * *
"I won't go," Mel told Hana, when she came to take her to the dayroom. "I'm staying in bed." Mel knew that it was coming out as garbled moans -- spastic talk -- but Hana seemed to understand.
"I give up," Hana said, after struggling to get Mel to sit up in bed. Mel should have called, tried to stop John. She had just been so tired. She buried herself in the covers, kicking as well as she could until it felt as though she was covered completely. Like a cave. She got part of the sheet hooked around her hand and dragged it over her head, then turned on her side, away from Hana.
"Today's your visitor day," Hana said, trying to wheedle a response from Mel. "And those ISA men will be coming soon, too."
Mel pressed her lips together, forcing herself to think about Mum, and her brothers. She tried to go back to sleep, but fell only into a drowsy half-sleep, vaguely aware of Hana moving about, cleaning things, pottering in Mel's closet.
Mel shivered, as someone touched her arm. "You're still wearing my bracelet." It was John.
She jerked her arm, trying to pull it back under the warm, safe covers.
"I'm sorry to have missed our day." John patted her shoulder through the sheets.