"Gardner Dozois - Morning Child" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

MORNING CHILD
Gardner Dozois




Technology advances much more quickly than usual during times of war, and even the
technology thatтАЩs been developed previously has been kept very secret, so despite our
expectations World War III, if it should ever happen, would probably surprise most of us with
unforseen , even fantastic weapons. GardnerDozois realizes that, and in this very short story he
presents us with the results of a strange weapon indeed.

GardnerDozois is not only the editor of many science fiction anthologies but also the author of
numerous short stories, novel-ettes and novellas that are well worth reading, including those in
his collectionThe Visible Man.



The old house had been hit by something sometime during the war and mashed nearly flat. The front was
caved in as though crushed by a giant fist: wood pulped and splintered, beams protruding at odd angles
like broken fingers, the sec-ond floor collapsed onto the remnants of the first. The rubble of a chimney
covered everything with a red mortar blanket. On the right a gaping hole cross-sectioned the ruins, laying
bare all the strata of fused stone and plaster and charred wood-everything curling back on itself like the
lips of a gangrenous wound. Weeds had swarmed up the low hillside from the road and swept over the
house, wrapping the ruins in wildflowers and grapevines, softening the edges of destruc-tion with green.

Williams brought John here almost every day. They had lived here once, in this house, many years ago,
and although JohnтАЩs memory of that time was dim, the place seemed to have pleasant associations for
him, in spite of its ruined condition. John was at his happiest here and would play contentedly with sticks
and pebbles on the shattered stone steps, or go whooping through the tangled weeds that had turned the
lawn into a jungle, or play-stalk in ominous circles around Williams while Williams worked at filling his
bags with blueberries, daylilies, Indian potatoes, dandelions, and other edible plants and roots.

Even Williams took a bittersweet pleasure in visiting the ruins, although coming here stirred memories
that he would rather have left undisturbed. There was a pleasant melancholy to the spot and something
oddly soothing about the mixture of mossy old stone and tender new green, a reminder of the inevitability
of cycles-life-in-death.death-in-life .
 John erupted out of the tall weeds and ran laughing to where Williams stood with the foraging bags. тАЬI
beenfight-ing dinosaurs!тАЭ John said.тАЬGreat big ones!тАЭ Williams smiled crookedly and said, тАЬThatтАЩs good.тАЭ
He reached down and rumpled JohnтАЩs hair. They stood there for a second, John panting like a dog from
all the running heтАЩd been doing, his eyes bright, Williams letting his touch linger on the small, tousled head.
At this time of the morning, John seemed always in motion, motion so continuous that it gave nearly the
illusion of rest, like a stream of water that looks solid until something makes it momentarily sputter and
stop.

This early in the day, John rarely stopped. When he did, as now, he seemed to freeze solid, his face
startled and intent, as though he were listening to sounds that no one else could hear. At such times
Williams would study him with painful intensity, trying to see himself in him, sometimes succeeding,
sometimes failing, and wondering which hurt more, and why.