"Kelley Eskridge - Alien Jane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Eskridge Kelly)

"Right." She was on her feet by this time, more bandage than body. "\Mell, I'll just have to try to
rernember that I belong here," and then she looked like she might cry, which I hate. I started to drift out
and let her get herself back, but I don't know, somethitg about her... I don't know. Arn"ay, I put out one
arm and said, "Bathroom's over here," and walked her to the door.

A nurse came in then and took over, she gave me a look and said to the thinskin, "Everything okay
here?"
"I didn't do anythiilB," I said.

She was better when I came back, but I didn't want to talk and I guess neither did she, except she said
what's your name and I said Rita and she said |ane.

She had Dr. Rousseau, who was my doctor and the best, not someone that I wanted to share with
creepy Jane; Rousseau who half of us would have swallowed rocks for, and even the nurses liked.
Rousseau spent a lot of time on Jane, but |ane wouldn't talk much more to her t[an she would to anybody
else, which I respected in a way. She wouldn't even talk to Tommy Gee.

"Does she say much to you when you're together on your own, without any doctors around? Does she
seem to communicate better with her peers?" Tommy Gee was always doing that, mixing up the stupid
patients' talk with the doctor talk so you never hrew if he meant it for you or some white coat standing
behind you. His real name was Gian-something-Italian but we called him Tommy Gee-for-gee-whiz
because that's how he was about everything, includittg being Rousseau's intern.

"If you mean does she rela,x when she's with the rest of us mentals then ro, Dr. Gee, I guess she isn't
comm-you-nee-catittg well at all. Muyb" they don't talk on whatever planet she's from."

"That doesn't sound very supportive, Rita."

"You're the doctor, /ou support her."

And he tried to, he was always coming around after her sessions with Rousseau, to talk to her, see if
there was anything he could do to get her to open up. She was his special project.
78 . Nebula Awards 3r

I got used to having her in my room because she was so quiet I didn't notice her half the time. I talked to
Rousseau about that during one morning session, and she just said ltmmm and wrote it down.

"I think Tommy Gee likes her, too, but she probably hasn't even noticed how stupid he gets around her."

"Hmmm."

"I guess it'll be okay having her there. I mean, I probably won't even notice when she's gone until two
days later."

Rousseau put the cap back on her pen and sat back in her chair. There was a little mended place near
the pocket of her doctor coat. The first time I saw Rousseau was twenty hours after I came into
Emergency, when they moved me up to the locked ward. She asked me if I wanted to talk and I said no
like always, feeling like a rock in the gutter when the rainwater runs over it, pushing it little by little toward
that big dark hole going down. I said ro, and then I saw the mark on her coat, the careful clumsy darn,