"Harry Harrison & Katherine MacLean - Web of the Norns" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

The strength in his solid form gave Grant a feeling of securityтАФthe same way it had done all the way
through college. They had roomed together and graduated together. It was only fitting that Herb be his
best man. Herb grinned around his pipe and Grant was surprised to find himself grinning back.
The vestry window was open and a warm breath of spring air blew in. A bird was singing
somewhere outside; the whole world seemed very wonderful to Grant.
Then he looked at the ill-fitting coat he held in his hand and felt the unhappy tension building up inside
himself. How could he get a new coat? But it was already too late to do anything; he could hear the
warming-up notes of the organ and the shuffling feet of the guests entering the chapel. He muttered a
repressed damn.
"Don't swear, Grant. I'm sure Lucy would be very hurt if she heard you talk like that. She's from a
very good family."
"I'm sorry, mother."
"That's right, dear. I always want to be proud my son is a gentleman."
Herb dropped his pipe and picked it up, looking somewhat red in the face.
Grant tried to smile, and then felt the old, sinking change coming. He tried to stop it. No, not now!
Why did it have to be now? Once or twice in his lifeтАФby a great effort тАФhe had managed to postpone
an attack when its timing was bad.
But he would not be able to hold it back through the entire wedding. Better to get it over with and
not spoil the wedding later. All he had to do was to get away from the voices and eyes and be alone for
awhile. There was a thin ringing in his ears, coming closer. He stopped fighting it and let it come.
"There's ten minutes yet," he said, hastily over the singing in his ears and the feeling of growing
distance between himself and all others. "I'm going to step out in the fresh air a moment."
There was a comfortable old graveyard outside, with slanted stones and long green grass and a
gnarled peach tree in full bloom. It was cut off from the outside world and the passage of time by a high
stone wall. The side door of the vestry opened to a little flagged path and curved around the building,
away from the observing eyes of windows. A private place for a moment at least.
"I have to avoid excitement," Grant thought, letting the door shut behind him. It was too late to avoid
it now; he'd have to take his medicine. Anyone watching would have seen Grant's lips curl back from his
teeth in an unhappy grimace that showed irregular canine teeth and changed his angelic appearance to a
rather pleasant animal look, like a blonde bird dog. He wandered on, past thought with the pounding in
his head, unconsciously seeking a sheltered spot to let go. He found it, a deep right angle in the stone wall
where it turned. He blundered off the path and into it, and leaned forward against the wall, propped
himself in a corner and waited for the petite mal, the time of stone-like unconsciousness.

There was no knowing how much time had passed, but the sudden pressure was gone and the thin
ringing in his ears, and he could see and hear and feel again. He leaned there a moment longer, grateful
for the cool roughness of the stone against his forehead, thankful that he was not the kind who fell down
and thrashed around. He could go and stand quietly in the bathroom with the door shut and not frighten
Lucy with it when they were married.
The sickness had deprived him of the games of childhood, hedged him around with the watchful care
of his mother. It had taken away his freedom to risk and dare, leaving him only the second-hand
adventures of poetry and books. But he was not going to let it take his marriage away from him. His
hard-learned ability to feel the fit coming would let him live a normal life and earn money as an architect
without his clients ever seeing anything wrong with him. With warning enough, there was always a quiet
place where he could go to have an attack.
He turned and looked out across the greenness of the deep grass and the old stone wall with the
small sandstone tombstones slanting right and left; everything was more vivid, as if sight were cleansed.
There was a window above his head and he could hear his mother's voice trickling out, very clear
and distant, like a memory. "Granty has fits, you know, if he gets excited, that is. It took me a great deal
of trouble to get him exempted from athletics at all his schools without saying what his trouble was. His