"Peter F. Hamilton - The Forever Kitten" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Peter F)

The Forever Kitten
PETER F. HAMILTON
Peter F. Hamilton (www.peterfhamilton.co.uk,) lives in Oakham, England. He began publishing SF
in the early 1990s with three SF detective novelsтАФMindstar Rising (1993), A Quantum Murder
(1994), and The Nano Flower (1995). But his prominence began with a massive trilogy of
one-thousand-page novels (in its original British form)тАФ The Reality Dysfunction (1996), The
Neutronium Alchemist (1997), and The Naked God (2000), together the Night's Dawn Trilogy. In
the U.S., all three books were divided into two volumes each, so it became a six-book series). A
collection, A Second Chance at Eden (1998), is set in the same "Confederation" future as the
trilogy. The whole setting is so complex that Hamilton published a non-fiction guide, The
Confederation Handbook: The Essential Guide to the Night's Dawn Series, in 2000. Two of his three
later novels to date are also space operaтАФFallen Dragon (2001) and Pandora's Star (2004), his
Commonwealth saga. The Void Trilogy is currently being written. After Iain M. Banks, Hamilton
is the most popular British space opera writer of the last decade.

"The Forever Kitten" appeared in Nature. It is small scale and closely focused, about scientific
research, money, and ethics. It is just plausible enough to be an effective SF horror story.

[version]

The mansion's garden was screened by lush trees. I never thought I'd be so entranced by anything as
simple as horse chestnuts, but that's what 18 months in jail on remand will do for your appreciation of the
simple things.

Joe Gordon was waiting for me; the venture capitalist and his wife Fiona were sitting on ornate metal
chairs in a sunken patio area. Their five-year-old daughter, Heloise, was sprawled on a pile of cushions,
playing with a ginger kitten.

"Thanks for paying my bail," I said.

"Sorry it took so long, Doctor," he said. "The preparations weren't easy, but we have a private plane
waiting to take you to the CaribbeanтАФan island the EU has no extradition treaty with."

"I see. Do you think it's necessary?"

"For the moment, yes. The Brussels Bioethics Commission is looking to make an example of you. They
didn't appreciate how many regulations you violated."

"They wouldn't have minded if the treatment had worked properly."

"Of course not, but that day isn't here yet, is it? We can set you up with another lab out there."

"Ah well, there, are worse places to be exiled. I appreciate it."

"Least we could do. My colleagues and I made a lot of money from the Viagra gland you developed."

I looked at Heloise again. She was a beautiful child, and the smile on her face as she played with the
kitten was angelic. The ball of ginger fluff was full of rascally high spirits, just like every two-month-old
kitten. I kept staring, shocked by the familiar pattern of marbling in its fluffy light fur.
"Yes," Joe said with quiet pride. "I managed to save one before the court had the litter destroyed. A