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

He was an old man.

He was a strong man.

As the Mouse pulled his hand to the edge of the table, the derelict lurched forward. Hip banged
the counter. Long toes struck a chair leg: the chair danced on the flags.

Old. Strong. The third thing the Mouse saw: blind.

He swayed before the Mouse's table. His hand swung up; yellow nails hit the Mouse's cheek.
(Spider's feet?) "You, boy ..."

The Mouse stared at the pearls behind rough, blinking lids.

"You, boy. Do you know what it was like?"

Must be blind, the Mouse thought. Moves like blind. Head sits forward so on his neck. And his


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eyes --

The codger flapped out his hand, caught a chair, and yanked it to him. It rasped as he fell on
the seat. "Do you know what it looked like, felt like, smelt like -- do you?"

The Mouse shook his head; the fingers tapped his cheek.

"We were moving out, boy, with the three hundred suns of the Pleiades glittering like a puddle of
jeweled milk on our left, and all blackness wrapped around our right. The ship was me; I was the
ship. With these sockets -- " he tapped the insets in his wrists against the table: click " -- I
was plugged into my vane-projector. Then -- " the stubble on his jaw rose and fell with the words
" -- centered on the dark, a light! It reached out, grabbed our eyes as we lay in the projection
chambers and wouldn't let them go. It was like the universe was torn and all day raging through.
I wouldn't go off sensory input. I wouldn't look away. All the colors you could think of were
there, blotting the night. And finally the shock waves: the walls sang! Magnetic inductance
oscillated over our ship, nearly rattled us apart. But then it was too late. I was blind." He
sat back in his chair. "I'm blind, boy. But with a funny kind of blindness; I can see you. I'm
deaf; but if you talked to me, I could understand most of what you said. Olfactory endings all
dead, and the taste buds over my tongue." His hand went flat on the Mouse's cheek. "I can't feel
the texture of your face. Most of the tactile nerve endings were killed too. Are you smooth, or
are you bristly and gristly as I am?' He laughed on yellow teeth in red, red gums. "Dan is blind
in a funny way." His band slipped down the Mouse's vest, catching the laces. "A funny way, yes.
Most people go blind in blackness. I have a fire in my eyes. I have that whole collapsing sun in
my head. The light lashed the rods and cones of my retina to constant stimulation, balled up a
rainbow and stuffed each socket full. That's what I'm seeing now. Then you, outlined here,
highlighted there, a solarized ghost across hell from me. Who are you?"

"Pontichos," the Mouse offered. His voice sounded like wool with sand, grinding. "Pontichos