"C. J. Cherryh - Cassandra" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cherryh C J)

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CASSANDRA*
C.J. Cherryh

introducing a female writer as "the lovely and talented Whatever-her-name-may-be" Is enough to get a person lynched In some circles-and, when you come to think of it, rightly so. (Does anyone ever introduce a male writer as "the debonair and talented Isaac Asimov"? Only in dreams.) But what do you do when the person Is certifiably handsome, and uncommonly so, and female to boot? And uncommonly Intelligent, amiable and gifted as well? No further description is necessary. I have just Introduced C. J. Cherryh, and need only add that not only was she runner-up for a Nebula In the short-story category: but she was runner-up as well In the novel category with her fine The Faded Sun: Kesrtth.

Fires.
They grew unbearable here.
Alis felt for the door of the flat and knew that it would be solid. She could feel the cool metal of the knob amid the flames... saw the shadow-stairs through the roiling smoke outside, clearly enough to feel her way down them, convincing her senses that they would bear her weight.
Crazy Alis. She made no haste. The fires burned steadily. She passed through them, descended the insubstantial steps to the solid ground-she could not abide the elevator, that closed space with the shadow-floor, that plummeted down and down; she made the ground floor, averted her eyes from the red, heatless flames.
A ghost said good morning to her... old man Willis, thin

"Runner-up for Nebula, for Heat Short Story of 1978.

and transparent against the leaping flames. She blinked, bade it good morning in return-did not miss old Willis' shake of the head as she opened the door and left. Noon traffic passed, heedless of the flames, the hulks that blazed in the street, the tumbling brick.
The apartment caved in-black bricks falling into the inferno, Hell amid the green, ghostly trees. Old Willis fled, burning, fell-turned to jerking, blackened flesh-died, daily. Alis no longer cried, hardly flinched. She ignored the horror spilling about her, forced her way through crumbling brick that held no substance, past busy ghosts that could not be troubled in their haste.
Kingsley's Cafe stood, whole, more so than the rest. It was refuge for the afternoon, a feeling of safety. She pushed open the door, heard the tinkle of a lost bell. Shadowy patrons looked, whispered.
Crazy Alis.
The whispers troubled her. She avoided their eyes and their presence, settled in a booth in the corner that bore only traces of the fire.
WAR, the headline in the vender said in heavy type. She shivered, looked up into Sam Kingsley's wraithlike face.
"Coffee," she said. "Ham sandwich." It was constantly the same. She varied not even the order. Mad Alis. Her affliction supported her. A check came each month, since the hospital had turned her out. Weekly she returned to the clinic, to doctors who now faded like the others. The building burned about them. Smoke rolled down the blue, antiseptic halls. Last week a patient ran-burning-
A rattle of china. Sam set the coffee on the table, came back shortly and brought the sandwich. She bent her head and ate, transparent food on half-broken china, a cracked, fire-smudged cup with a transparent handle. She ate, hungry enough to overcome the horror that had become ordinary. A hundred times seen, the most terrible sights lost their power over her: she no longer cried at shadows. She talked to ghosts and touched them, ate the food that somehow stilled the ache in her belly, wore the same too-large black sweater and worn blue shirt and grey slacks because they were all she had that seemed solid. Nightly she washed them and dried them and put them on the next day, letting others hang in the closet. They were the only solid ones.
She did not tell the doctors these things. A lifetime in and
out of hospitals had made her wary of confidences. She knew what to say. Her half-vision let her smile at ghostfaces, cannily manipulate their charts and cards, sitting in the ruins that had begun to smolder by late afternoon. A blackened corpse lay in the hall. She did not flinch when she smiled good-naturedly at the doctor.
They gave her medicines. The medicines stopped the dreams, the siren screams, the running steps in the night past her apartment. They let her sleep in the ghostly bed, high above ruin, with the flames crackling and the voices screaming. She did not speak of these' things. Years in hospitals had taught her. She complained only of nightmares, and restlessness, and they let her have more of the red pills.
WAR, the headline blazoned.
The cup rattled and trembled against the sauce; as she picked it up. She swallowed the last bit of bread and washed it down with coffee, tried not to look beyond the broken front window, where twisted metal hulks smoked on the street. She stayed, as she did each day, and Sam grudgingly refilled her cup, that she would nurse as far as she could and then order another one. She lifted it, savoring the feel of it, stopping the trembling of her hands.
The bell jingled faintly. A man closed the door, settled at the counter.
Whole, clear in her eyes. She stared at him, startled, heart pounding. He ordered coffee, moved to buy a paper from the vender, settled again and let the coffee grow cold while he read the news. She had view only of his back while he read-scuffed brown leather coat, brown hair a little over his collar. At last he drank the cooled coffee all at one draught, shoved money onto the counter and left the paper lying, headlines turned face down.
A young face, flesh and bone among the ghosts. He ignored them all and went for the door.
Alis thrust herself from her booth.
"Hey!" Sam called at her.
She rummaged in her purse as the bell jingled, flung a bill onto the counter, heedless that it was a five. Fear was coppery in her mouth; he was gone. She fled the cafe, edged round debris without thinking of it, saw his back disappearing among the ghosts.

She ran, shouldering them, braving the flames-cried out as debris showered painlessly on her, and kept running.
Ghosts turned and stared, shocked-he did likewise, and she ran to him, stunned to see the same shock on his face, regarding her.
"What is it?" he asked.
She blinked, dazed to realize he saw her no differently than the others. She could not answer. In irritation he started walking again, and she followed. Tears slid down her face, her breath hard in her throat, People stared. He noticed her presence and walked the faster, through debris, through fires. A wall began to fall and she cried out despite herself.
He jerked about. The dust and the soot rose up as a cloud behind him. His face was distraught and angry. He stared at her as the others did. Mothers drew children away from the scene. A band of youths stared, cold-eyed and laughing.
"Wait," she said. He opened his mouth as if he would curse her; she flinched, and the tears were cold in the heatless wind of the fires. His face twisted in an embarrassed pity. He thrust a: hand into his pocket and began to pull out money, hastily, tried to give it to her. She shook her head furiously, trying to stop the tears-stared upward, flinching, as another building fell into flames.
"What's wrong?" he asked her. "What's wrong with you?"
"Please," she said. He looked about at the staring ghosts, then began to walk slowly. She walked with him, nerving herself not to cry out at the ruin, the pale moving figures that wandered through burned shells of buildings, the twisted corpses in the street, where traffic moved.
"What's your name?" he asked. She told him. He gazed at her from time to time as they walked, a frown creasing his brow. He had a face well-worn for youth, a tiny scar beside the mouth. He looked older than she. She felt uncomfortable in the way his eyes traveled over her: she decided to accept it-to bear with anything that gave her this one solid presence. Against every inclination she reached her hand into the bend of his arm, tightened her fingers on the worn leather. He accepted it.
And after a time he slid his arm behind her and about her waist, and they walked like lovers.
WAR, the headline at the newsstand cried.
He started to turn into a street by Tenn's Hardware. She
balked at what she saw there. He paused when he felt it, faced her with his back to the fires of that burning.