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

taking over?"
Amanda laced and unlaced her fingers in her lap. "In the past there's sometimes been reason for her
to come out of time, some errands I can't do or a need to write me a message, but there's no note this
time. I also found damp towels that weren't there last night. If she isn't honoring our agreement any
longer, soon it won't be minutes she's taking, it will be hours, then days, until there's no time left I can
count on for my own. I don't know what to do, Matthew. How can I fight her?"
"I know a psychiatrist who spends her weekends here in Aventine. Perhaps she can help."
"No!" Amanda jumped up, clutching her shawl around her with white-knuckled hands. "She'd only
want to reintegrate me."
I stood, too, and cupped her face between my hands. "Would that be so terrible? Then all the time
would be yours."
"But I'd have to become part of ... what Selene is." She pulled away from me, shaking her head.
"That's unthinkable. I couldn't bear it. There's no other way but to go on as I am. So promise me,
Matthew, promise that if you ever see Selene, you'll tell me. I have to know when she's stealing time."
I took a deep breath and lied with a straight face. тАЬI promise."
Amanda walked into my arms and buried her face against my neck. "Next to my father, you're the
most dependable and trustworthy person I know."
If I looked as guilty as I felt, I was glad she could not see my face.
She stirred in my arms. I felt a ripple of tension in her body. She lifted her head and kissed me hard. I
grabbed her shoulders and held her off at arm's length to look at her.
"Selene," I hissed. "What are you doing here?"
"I sensed you felt the two of us ought to talk." She slipped out of my hands and went to curl up in one
of the chairs.
 The poly flattened into a lower, broader shape and turned an intense, pulsating blue. It was odd to
see Selene in Amanda's clothes, but odder yet that, despite them, she looked like herself and not
Amanda. Energy ran like a restless, self-willed thing under her skin. She could not even sit without that
coiled-spring tension.
"Talk, Gordy," she said.
"I'd intended to do it tomorrow. What am I supposed to tell Amanda when she comes back?"
"Tell her she fell asleep. By the way, thanks for saying nothing about me."
"Next time m tell her. I won't lie to her again. So I guess this will all have to stop."
She frowned. "You mean quit running together?"
"I mean quit everything: running, swimming, practicing. . .тАЭ
"Quit practicing?" Her face set. "I can't afford to stop practicing. Gordy, it's time she doesn't use. She
hasn't missed it before, and if Tm careful not to let her catch me out again, shell never miss it" I shook my
bead. "You're breaking an agreement"
"I'm not taking over, though. You know that's just a paranoid fantasy. I use only enough time for
practice and no more." I sighed. "You seem to have all the best of it"
She snorted. "I wonder. Do you have any idea what ifs like being locked up in her head for six
months, continuously aware but able to do nothing? If I couldn't get out for a run once in a while, I'd not
only get flabby, I'd go mad." She bounced out of the chair and came over to lace her fingers together
behind my neck. "What about you? It's three months until January. How can I give up seeing you for
three whole months?"
I did not like that idea, either, but ... "What else can we do? Shall I lie to Amanda and hate you for
making me do it?"
She winced. "No."
"Well be able to see each other all we like in January."
"January." She groaned the word. "That's forever. Kiss me good-by, Gordy."
Kissing Selene was like grabbing a high-voltage wire. The charge in her swept through us both. I
could almost smell the smoke from my sizzling nerve endings. And this time when I pushed her onto the