"Samuel R. Delany - Corona" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

the mirror. "Naw. I was just having a bad ... dream."

She put the mirror back. As she turned, suddenly she closed her eyes
and sighed.
"What'sa matter?"

She opened them again. "It's stopped. I can't hear inside your head any
more. It's been going on all day."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Maybe you read about me in the magazine. There was a big article
about me in New Times, a couple of years ago. I'm in the hospital too.
Over on the other side, in the psychiatric division. Did you read the
article?"

"Didn't do much magazine reading back then. Don't do too much now
either. What'd they write about?"

"I can hear and see what other people are thinking. I'm one of the three
they're studying. I do it best of all of them. But it only comes in spurts.
The other one, Eddy, is an idiot. I met him when we were getting all the
tests. He's older than you and even dumber. Then there's Mrs. Lowery.
She doesn't hear. She just sees. And sometimes she can make other
people hear her. She works in the school here at the hospital. She can
came and go as she pleases. But I have to stay locked up."

Buddy squinted. "You can hear what's in my head?"

"Not now. But I could. And it was ..." Her lip began to quiver; her
brown eyes brightened. "... I mean when that man tried to ... with the
..." And overflowed. She put her fingers on her chin and twisted. "...
when he ... cutting in your ..."

Buddy saw her tears, wondered at them. "Aw, honey-" he said, reached
to take her shoulder-

Her face struck his chest and she clutched his pajama jacket. "It hurt so
much!"

Her grief at his agony shook her.

"I had to stop you from hurting! Yours was just a dream, so I could
sneak out of my room, get down here, and wake you up. But the others,
the girl in the fire, or the man in the flooded mine ... those weren't
dreams! I couldn't do anything about them. I couldn't stop the hurting
there. I couldn't stop it at all, Buddy! I wanted to. But one was in
Australia and the other in Costa Rica!" She sobbed against his chest.
"And one was on Mars! And I couldn't get to Mars. I couldn't!"