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

Interference crackles and what she says is too soft to hear.
I tell her, "Repeat, please."
"Stone don't break. At least not easy." She cuts off the circuit
I've got ten seconds to stare out at that vast crowd. Where, I wonder, did the arena logistics people
scrape up almost a million in/out headbands? I know I'm hallucinating, but for just a moment I see the
scarlet webwork of broadcast power reaching out from my console to those million skulls. I don't know
why; I find myself reaching for the shield that covers the emergency total cutoff. I stop my hand.
The house lights go all the way down; the only illumination comes from a thousand exit signs and the
equipment lights. Then Moog Indigo troops onstage as the crowd begins to scream in anticipation. The
group finds their instruments in the familiar darkness. The crowd is already going crazy.
Hollis strokes her color board and shoots concentric spheres of hard primaries expanding through the
arena; Red, yellow, blue. Start with the basics. Red.
Nagami's synthesizer spews a volcanic flow of notes like homing magma.
And then Jain is there. Center stage.
"Damn it," says the tech in my ear. "Level's too low. Bring it up in back." I must have been dreaming.
I am performing stupidly, like an amateur. Gently I bring up two stim balance slides.
"тАФlove you. Every single one of you."
The crowd roars back. The filling begins. I cut in four more low-level tracks.
"тАФready. How about you?"
They're ready. I cut in another dozen tracks, then mute two. Things are building just a little too fast.
The fine mesh around Jain's body seems to glitter with more than reflected light Her skin already gleams
with moisture.
"-get started easy. And then things'll get hard. Yeah?тАЭ
"YEAH!" from thousands of throats simultaneously.
I see her stagger slightly. I don't think I am feeding her too much too fast, but mute another pair of
tracks anyway. Moog Indigo takes their cue and begins to play. Hollis gives the dome the smoky pallor
of slow-burning leaves. Then Jain Snow sings.
And I fill her with them. And give her back to them.

X

space and time measured in my heart

In the afternoon:
Jain gestures in an expansive circle. "This is where I grew up."
 The mountains awe me. "Right here?"
She shakes her head. "It was a lot like this. My pa ran sheep. Maybe a hundred miles north."
"But in the mountains?"
"Yeah. Really isolated. My pa convinced himself he was one of the original settlers. He was actually a
laid-off aerospace engineer out of Seattle."
The wind flays us for a moment; Jain's hair whips and she shakes it back from her eyes. I pull her into
the shelter of my arms, wrapping my coat around us both. "Do you want to go back down to the car?"
"Hell, no," she says. "A mountain zephyr can't scare me off."
I'm not used to this much open space; it scares me a little, though I'm not going to admit that to Jain.
We're above timberline, and the mountainside is too stark for my taste. I suddenly miss the rounded,
wooded hills of Pennsylvania. Jain surveys the rocky fields rubbed raw by wind and snow, and I have a
quick feeling she's scared too. "Something wrong?"
"Nope. Just remembering."
"What's it like on a ranch?"
"Okay, if you don't like people," she says slowly, obviously recalling details. "My pa didn't"