"Dann, Jack - Going Under" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dann Jack)

"Do you want me to do it?" Stephen asked.
"I don't see why I must throw him away."
"Because we're starting a new life together. We want to live, not-"
Just then someone shouted and, as if in the distance, a bell rang three times.

"Could there be another ship nearby?" Esme asked.
"Esme, throw the box away!" Stephen snapped; and then he saw it. He pulled Esme backward, away from the rail. An iceberg as high as the forecastle deck scraped against the side of the ship; it almost seemed that the bluish, glistening mountain of ice was another ship passing, that the ice rather than the ship was moving. Pieces of ice rained upon the deck, slid across the varnished wood, and then the iceberg was lost in the darkness astern. It must have been at least one hundred feet high.
"O my god!" Esme screamed, rushing to the rail and leaning over it.
"What it is?"
"Poppa, I dropped him, when you pulled me away from the iceberg. I didn't mean to . . . ."
Stephen put his arms around her, but she pulled away. "If you didn't mean to throw it away--"
"Him, not it!"
"-him away, then why did you bring him up here?"
"To satisfy you, to . . . 1 don't know, Stephen. I suppose I was going to try to do it."
"Well, it's done, and you're going to feel better, I promise. I love you. Esme."
"I love ,you, Stephen," she said distractedly. A noisy crowd gathered on the deck around them. Some were quite drunk and were kicking large chunks of ice about, as if they were playing soccer.
"Come on, then," Stephen said, "let's get heavy coats and blankets, and we'll wait on deck for a lifeboat. We'll take the first one out and watch the ship sink together."
"No, I'll meet you right here in an hour."
"Esme, it's too dangerous, I don't think we should separate." Stephen glimpsed the woman from lnterfax standing alone on the elevated sun deck, recording this event for her millions of viewers.
"We've got time before anything is going to happen."
"We don't know that," Stephen insisted. "Don't you real-
ize that we're off schedule? We were supposed to hit that iceberg tomorrow."
But Esme had disappeared into the crowd.

It was bitter cold, and the Boat Deck was filled with people, all rushing about, shouting, scrambling for the lifeboats, and, inevitably, those who had changed their minds at the last moment about going down with the ship were shouting the loudest, trying the hardest to be permitted into the boats, not one of which had been lowered yet. There were sixteen wooden lifeboats and. four canvas Englehardts, the collapsibles. But they could not be lowered away until the davits were cleared of the two forward boats. The crew was quiet, each man busy with the boats and davits. All the boats were now swinging free of the ship, hanging just beside the Boat Deck.
"We'll let you know when it's time to board," shouted an officer to the families crowding around him.
The floor was listing. Esme was late, and Stephen wasn't going to wait. At this rate, the ship would be bow-down in the water in no time.
She must be with Michael, he thought. The little bastard must have talked her into dying.

Michael had a stateroom on C Deck.
Stephen knocked, called to Michael and Esme, tried to open the door, and finally kicked the lock free.
Michael was sitting on the bed, which was a Pullman berth. His sister lay beside him, dead.
"Where's Esme?" Stephen demanded, repelled by the sight of Michael sitting so calmly beside his dead sister.
"Not here. Obviously." Michael smiled, then made the rubber-lips face at Stephen.
"Jesus," Stephen said. "Put your coat on, you're coming with me."
Michael laughed and patted his hair down. "I'm already dead, just like my sister, almost. I took a pill too, see?"

and he held up a small brown bottle. "Anyway, they wouldn't let me on a lifeboat. I didn't sign up for one, remember?"
"You're a baby, they-"
"I thought Poppa explained that to you." Michael lay down beside his sister and watched Stephen like a puppy with its head cocked at an odd angle.
"You do know where Esme is, now tell me."
"You never understood her. She came here to die."
"That's all changed," Stephen said, wanting to wring the boy's neck.
"Nothing's changed. Esme loves me, too. And everything else."
"Tell me where she is."
"It's too late for me to teach you how to meditate. In a way, you're already dead. No memory, or maybe you've just been born. No past lives. A baby." Again, Michael made the rubber-lips face. Then he closed his eyes. He whispered, "She's doing what I'm doing."
An instant later, he stopped breathing. ,

Stephen searched the ship, level by level, broke in on the parties, where those who had opted for death were having a last fling, looked into the lounges where many old couples sat, waiting for the end. He made his way down to F Deck, where he had made love to Esme in the Turkish bath. The water was up to his knees; it was green and soapy. He was afraid, for the list was becoming worse minute by minute; everything was happening so fast.
The water rose, even as he walked.