"C. S. Friedman - The Wilding" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

Yes, we're recording. Go ahead.
I guess you want to know about him. (Pause.) I don't remember much. It's strange when I look back, I
can't see his face clearly. Like someone took an eraser and smudged all the colors there. The rest is fine
but I can't see that.
(Pause.)
I don't know that I'm going to be able to do much good here ...
Why don't you just start at the beginning?
... All right. All right. I can do that.
The beginning? (Pause.) I came to work for Aleys and Kel right after the birth. They were a prosperous
couple, I knew that from the start. Had a nice house on Chandra Prime and a private berth at the
spaceport. Really nice. You could tell they both made good money and didn't mind spending it on the things
that mattered. That was a good sign. I also figured that was why they were willing to hire me, because
neither of them wanted to give up their nice income. I mean, it was kind of odd for Chandrans; usually that
race won't let strangers help raise their children no matter what. But I figured that was it, they just needed
a little hand here and there to let them stay in the work force while the kids grew up. Not unheard of. Other
races do it all the time.
So anyway, I got there five days after the birth. You could see right away that the parents were really
glad to have me there. They were a young couple, hardly old enough to be having children, I thought. But
then, you never know. I've heard some of the Scattered Races start with conception while they're still kids
themselves, some kind of hormone preparation thing. Never worked for one of those races myself, but I've
heard tales from nurturers who have. They were pretty critical of the practice, but the way I see it, it's
none of our busi-ness to tell another race when to reproduce, you know? "Human is as human does," or so
they say.
Why don't you tell us about the children?
All right. Well, the first thing you noticed of course was that there were two of them. Two! I mean, it
hap-pens all the time with other races, but when was the last time you heard of a multiple birth with
Chandrans? They like controlling things so much, it's amazing they'd even think about letting an egg split up
all on its own. Or let both halves grow up if it did.
And they were real twins, too. Little girls. (Pause.) Pretty little things. (Pause.) I remember....
(Long pause.)
Go on.
The girls were absolutely identical, a real split-egg pair. And you could see their parents hadn't been
ready to take on two, whatever they might have thought before the birth. So they called me in to help. That
was fine. I settled in fast and pretty much took over, and they were happy with that. The kids were well
behaved, didn't cry much, not unless you separated them. They were bright enough, but they spent a lot of
time just staring at each other. I guess identicals are like that. It's kind of like they only have one brain, you
know, just split up into two parts. I guess there's some part of them that knows what the other is. You could
almost sense that sometimes, when you were watching them. Really eerie.
Did you know about the security issues?
(Pause.) Kel said that because of their genetic code they were at high risk for . .. what was his phrase?
... "lifestyle interruption." He never explained what that meant. I know the parents had special security all
over the place, like this system linked to Chandra Prime's Central Ops that would send people running to
help if there was the least sign of trouble.
You could tell they really wanted to explain things to me, especially Aleys. But they said they couldn't.
Said the facts couldn't be in my brain, or something like that. (Pause. In a whisper:) Poor little kids. You
think if I'd known what was really going on I could have helped more? Oh, the poor babies. He almost got
them, you know?
(Gently:) Please go on.
Not much more to tell, for about six pasats. I don't think you want details of child care, do you? (Pause.)
Anyway, you don't get much variety with Chandran ba-bies. It's all preprogrammed. You know when