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

"If you mean Stephen, yes."
"I thought so," said Michael. Then he sat down at the desk and talked to Poppa.
"Can't we have any privacy?" Stephen asked when Esme came back to bed. She shrugged and took a pull at her inhalor. Drugged, she looked even softer, more vulnerable. "I thought you told me that Poppa was turned off all night," he continued angrily.
"But he was turned off," Esme said. "I just now turned him back on for Michael." Then she cuddled up to Stephen, as intimately as if they had been in love for days. That seemed to mollify him.
"Do you have a spare Narcodrine in there?" Michael shouted.
Stephen looked at Esme and laughed. "No," Esme said, "you're too young for such things." She opened the curtain so they could watch Michael. He made the rubber-lips face at Stephen and then said, "1 might as well try everything. I'll be dead soon."
"You know," Esme said to Stephen, "I believe him."
"I'm going to talk to his sister, or whoever she is, about this."
"I heard what you said." Michael turned away from Poppa, who seemed lost in thought. "I have very good hearing, I heard everything you said. Go ahead and talk to her,

talk to the captain, if you like. It won't do you any good. I'm an international hero, if you'd like to know. That girl who wears the camera in her hair already did an interview for me for the poll." Then he gave them his back and resumed his hushed conversation with Poppa.
"Who does he mean?" asked Esme.
"The woman reporter from Interfax," Stephen said.
"Her job is to guess which passengers will opt to die, and why," interrupted Michael, who turned around in his chair. "She interviews the most interesting passengers, then gives her predictions to her viewers-and they are considerable. They respond immediately to a poll taken several times a day. Keeps us in their minds, and everybody loves the smell of death." Michael turned back to Poppa.
"Well, she hasn't tried to interview me,"
"Do you really want her to?" Stephen asked.
"And why not? I'm for conspicuous consumption, and I want so much for this experience to be a success. Goodness, let the whole world watch us sink, if they want. They might just as well take bets." Then, in a conspiratorial whisper, she said, "None of us really knows who's opted to die. That's part of the excitement. Isn't it?"
"I suppose," Stephen said.
"Oh, you're such a prig," Esme said. "One would think you're a doer."
"What?"
"A doer. All of us are either doers or voyeurs, isn't that right? But the doers mean business," and to illustrate she cocked her head, stuck out her tongue, and made gurgling noises as if she were drowning. "The voyeurs, however, are just along for the ride. Are you sure you're not a doer?"
Michael, who had been eavesdropping again, said, referring to Stephen, "He's not a doer, you can bet on that! He's a voyeur of the worst sort. He takes it all seriously."
"Mitchell, that's not a very nice thing to say. Apologize or I'll turn Poppa off and you can go right-"
"I told you before, it's Michael. M-I-C-H-A-"
"Now that's enough disrespect from both of you," Poppa said. "Michael, stop goading Stephen. Esme says she loves him. Esme, be nice to Michael. He just made my day. And you don't have to threaten to turn me off. I'm turning myself off. I've got some thinking to do." Poppa closed his eyes and nothing Esme said would awaken him.
"Well, he's never done that before," Esme said to Michael, who was now standing before the bed and trying to place his feet as wide apart as he could. "What did you say to him?"
"Nothing much."
"Come on, Michael, I let you into the room, remember?"
"I remember. Can I come into bed with you?"
"Hell, no," Stephen said.
"He's only a child," Esme said as she moved over to make room for Michael, who climbed in between her and Stephen. "Be a sport. You're the man I love."
"Do you believe in transmigration of souls?" Michael asked Esme.
"What?"
"Well, I asked Poppa if he remembered any of his past lives, that is. if he had any. Poppa's conscious, you know, even if he is a machine."
"Did your sister put such ideas in your head?" Esme asked.
"Now you're being condescending." However, Michael made the rubber-lips face at Stephen, rather than at Esme. Stephen made a face back at him, and Michael howled in appreciation, then became quite serious and said, "On the contrary, I helped my sister to remember. It wasn't easy, either, because she hasn't lived as many lives as I have. She's younger than me. I bet I could help you to remember," he said to Esme.
"And what about me?" asked Stephen, playing along, enjoying the game a little now.

"You're a nice man, but you're too filled up with philosophy and rationalizations. You wouldn't grasp any of it; it's too simple. Anyway, you're in love and distracted."
"Well, I'm in love too," Esme said petulantly.
"But you're in love with everything. He's only in love with one thing at a time."
"Am I a thing to you?" Esme asked Stephen.
"Certainly not."
But Michael would not be closed out. "I can teach you how to meditate," he said to Esme. "It's easy, once you know how. You just watch things in a different way."
"Then would I see all my past lives?" Esme asked.
"Maybe."
"Is that what you do?"
"I started when I was six," Michael said. "I don't do anything anymore, I just see differently. It's something like dreaming." Then he said to Esme, "You two are like a dream, and I'm outside it. Can I come in?" .
Delighted, Esme asked, "You mean, become a family?"
"Until the end," Michael said. '~