"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bride of Elvis" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

Darlene didn't think twice. She got right in there and started bawling hard. He reached across her and then had to
slide right next to her to reach the door and close it since she was holding on tight to that bouquet with both hands
now, worried about Mars, her talking cat, not having had any breakfast at all, not any, then remembering that the bag
of pellets was open behind the kitchen door.
The light changed, and he ground the gears, apparently not concerned about his transmission, and whatever he
had in the back of the truck crashed against the tailgate.
"Jason took my tie-down, the little creep. Wait till I get my hands on him, I'll warm his fanny good. His mom lets him
do whatever he wants. I'm just the mean daddy." He sighed, and his eyes, when he looked at Darlene, were sad and
lost. "He stays mostly with her anyway."
Darlene was still crying some, just little snorts and a few tears. He leaned down and fished under the seat and came
up with an old wrecked box of Kleenex. He pulled one out and handed it to her. "Here," he said. "Blow hard."
She put the flowers up on the dash and blew hard, not feeling at all embarrassed.
"Now, I want you to tell me what this here is all about," he said. "Have a fight with your boyfriend?"
"No," she gasped, so upset that she didn't even think twice about what to say. "It's Elvis. He's gone!" And she
started to cry again, even harder. They'd waited for so long, and now that He was gone, no one would ever return, and
they would never get home again. The ship wouldn't have any reason to come back for them. Stuck on this
Kingforsaken planet through all millennia. And no more kiddies either! They couldn't have kiddies without Him! Those
little twist-boxes of hair clippings would be used up real fast. She started to cry again. It was too awful. Darlene had
never felt so rattled in all her born days, not even when she had had to leave her kiddies behind to take up her duties
as a Bride.
"Oh," he said. "I see." But she could tell by the set of his jaw and the crinkle beneath his eye that he didn't see, not
at all, and she was enraged that she'd told all this to a stranger, a human, who would only laugh at her.
But he didn't. He just drove through the empty downtown Memphis blocks, past the Peabody, through the
ramshackle part of town with its run-down blues dives, until they got to the river.
"Maybe it would calm you down some to go for a little ride. Sometimes that's the best thing to do, it's real soothing,
you know, especially after we get out into the country. I live over in Arkansas. It's right pretty over there, and the
apple blossoms are all out. Well, you might not want to go anywhere with me--" he looked at her and she stared back --
"I might as well tell you I got real drunk last night and pretty much passed out here in the front seat. But there's no
reason to hold that against me. Sometimes a person has to have a drink or two."
She didn't say anything while they crossed the gray Mississippi beneath the darkening sky, thinking furiously.
What the hell was going on? Why was He gone? Why hadn't the security system worked? Because of the power
failure, probably, the one that put her alarm clock on the blink. That Tech Rita, strutting around in her militaristic gear.
She'd like it if Darlene was blamed, wouldn't she? Wouldn't be too hard to keep her from waking up on time. Maybe she
was in cahoots with the Band of the King.
Yeah, sure. But what about the backup system?
She'd almost forgotten where she was when he said, "Well, really, I could use some breakfast, couldn't you? You
sure look like you could."
He pulled into a little place that advertised "Home Cooking" and helped her jump down from the seat. The truck cab
was pretty high off the ground, not like her low, sleek, red 'Vette with the plate that read Bride 1.
She followed him inside, drained and tired. Well, of course she was ravenous. It was their one weakness -- they
needed to eat, and a lot; they needed these substances produced by Earth to survive. Not as good as mana, not
nearly as powerful or longevity-producing, but they could get by if they got enough. That's why they hit the grocery
stores so often. Two, three times a day, full carts each time. Too many of them to feed on the ship after the drive went
bad, not enough energy to run the ship and make mana too. A skeleton crew had gone on. They'd be back. Someday.
Or maybe never, now, because of her. Because of her failure.
They had discovered that they couldn't all live together here, though -- they simply ate too much. At least four
times as much as humans, so they spread out over a couple of states so as not to attract notice.
They kept in touch at the grocery stores, of course. Those aisles were their domain, the sound of rattling grocery
carts as familiar as breathing, the memorized foodgrids of a dozen big grocery chains each one knew like the back of
her hand. A lot of them doubted whether the fleet would come back for them, but Darlene had never wavered in her