"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

demanding of me than ever before.
When it's done, she holds me close and very tightly. Her rate of breathing slows and becomes
regular. I wonder if she is asleep.
"Hey," I say.
"What?" She slurs the word sleepily.
тАЬIтАЩm sorry about tonight"
". . .Not your fault"
"I love you very much,"
She rolls to face me. "Huh?"
"I love you."
"No, babe. Don't say that"
"It's true," I say.
"Won't work."
"Doesn't matter," I say.
"It can't work."
I know I don't have any right to feel this, but I'm pissed, and so I move away in the bed. "I don't
care." The first time: "Such a goddamned adolescent, Rob."
After a while, she says, "Robbie, I'm cold,тАЭ and so I move bade to her and hold her and say nothing.
I realize, rubbing against her hip, that Pm again hard; she doesn't object as I pour back into her all the
frustration she unloaded in me earlier.
Neither of us sleeps much the rest of the night. Sometime before dawn I doze briefly and awaken
from a nightmare. I am disoriented and can't remember the entirety of the dream, but I do remember hard
wires and soft flows of electrons. My eyes suddenly focus and I see her face inches away from mine.
Somehow she knows what I am thinking. "Whose turn is it?" she says. The antenna.

VIII

At least a thousand hired kids are there setting up chairs in the arena this morning, but it's still hard to
feel I'm not alone. The dome is that big. Voices get lost here. Even thoughts echo.
тАЬIt's gonna be a hell of a concert tonight I know it" Jain had said mat and smiled at me when she
came through here about ten. She'd swept down the center aisle in a flurry of feathers and shimmering
red strips, leaving all the civilians stunned and quivering.
God only knows why she was up this early; over the last eight
 months, I've never seen her get op before noon on a concert day. That kind of sleep-in routine would
kill me. I was out of bed by eight this morning, partly because I've got to get this console modified by
showtime, and partly because I didn't feel like being in the star's bed when she woke up.
"The gate's going to be a lot bigger than last night," Jain had said. "Can you handle it?"
"Sure. Can you?"
Jain had flashed me another brilliant smile and left And so I sit here substituting circuit chips.
A couple kids climb on stage and pull breakfasts out of their backpacks. "You ever read this?" says
one, pulling a tattered paperback from his hip pocket His friend shakes her head. "You?" He turns the
book in my direction; I recognize the cover.
It was two, maybe three months ago in Memphis, in a studio just before rehearsal. Jain had been
sitting and reading. She reads quite a lot, though the promotional people downplay itтАФAlpertron, Ltd,
likes to suck the country-girl image for all it's worth.
"What's that?" Stella says.
"A book." Jain holds up the book so she can see.
"I know that" Stella reads the title: Receptacle. "Isn't that the-"
"Yeah," says Jain.
Everybody knows about ReceptacleтАФfat best seller of the year. It's all fact, about the guy who went