"Samuel R. Delany - The Star Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

Ratlit began to laugh. Suddenly he asked, "How long are they passed out for?"

"Only a few hours," Alegra said. "It must be terribly annoying." And I began to feel mildly itchy in all sorts
of unscratchable places, my shoulder blades, somewhere down my ear, the roof of my mouth. Have you
ever tried to scratch the roof of your mouth?

"Well," Ratlit said, "let's sit down and wait it out."

"We can talk," Alegra said, patly. "That way it won't seem like such a long . . ." and hundreds of years
later she finished ". . . time."

"Good," Ratlit said. "I wanted to talk to you. That's why I came up here in the first place."

"Oh, fine!" Alegra said. "I love to talk. I want to talk about love. Loving someone" (an incredible yearning
twisted my stomach, rose to block my throat) "I mean really loving someone" (the yearning brushed the
edge of agony) "means you are willing to admit the person you love is not what you first fell in love with,
not the image you first had; and you must be able to like them still for being as close to that image as they
are, and avoid disliking them for being so far away."

And through the tenderness that suddenly obliterated all hurt, Ratlit's voice came from the jeweled
mosaics shielding him: "Alegra, I want to talk about loneliness."

"I'm on my way home, kids," I said. "Tell me what happens with Prince Charming when he wakes up."
They kept on talking while I went through the difficulties of finding my way out without Alegra's help.
When my head cleared, halfway down the stairs, I couldn't tell you if I'd been there five minutes or five
years.



When I got to the hangar next morning Sandy was filing the eight-foot prongs on the conveyer. "You got
a job coming in about twenty minutes," he called down from the scaffold.

"I hope it's not another of those rebuilt jobs."

"Yep."

"Hell," I said. "I don't want to see another one for six weeks."

"All he wants is a general tune-up. Maybe two hours."

"Depends on where it's been," I said. "Where has it been?"

"Just back fromтАФ"

"Never mind." I started toward the office cubicle. "I think I'll put the books in order for the last six
months. Can't let it go forever."

"Boss!" Sandy protested. "That'll take all day!"