"Zenna Henderson - Holding Wonder" - читать интересную книгу автора (Henderson Zenna)

"Yes, all of us can. And ourselves, too. See?" And there he was, floating!
His knees level with my head! His shoe laces drooped forlornly down, and one
used tissue tumbled to the steps below him.

"Come down," I said, swallowing a vast lump of some kind. He did. "But you
know there's no air in space, and our capsule-Good Lord! Our capsule? In
space? -wasn't airtight. How did you expect to breathe?"

"We have a shield," he said. "See?" And there he sat, a glint of something
about him. I reached out a hand and drew back my stubbed fingers. The glint
was gone. "It keeps out the cold and keeps in the air," he said.

"Let's-let's analyze this a little," I suggested weakly, nursing my fingers
unnecessarily. "You say there's a man orbiting in a disabled capsule, and you
planned to go up in our capsule with only the air you could take with you and
rescue him?" He nodded wordlessly. "Oh, child! Child!" I cried. "You couldn't
possibly!"

"Then he'll die." Desolation flattened his voice and he sagged forlornly.

Well, what comfort could I offer him? I sagged, too. Lucky, I thought then,
that it's moonlight tonight. People traditionally believe all kinds of arrant
nonsense by moonlight. So. I straightened. Let's believe a little-or at least
act as if.
"Vincent?"
"Yes, ma'am." His face was shadowed by his hunched shoulders.

"If you can lift our capsule this far, how far could your daddy lift it?"
"Oh, lots farther!" he cried. "My daddy was studying to be a regular Motiver
when he went to the New Home, but he stopped when he came back across space to
Earth again because Outsiders don't accept-oh!" His eyes rounded and he
pressed his hands to his mouth. "Oh, I forgot!" His voice came muffled. "I
forgot! You're an Outsider! We're forbidden to tell-to show-Outsiders don't-"

"Nonsense," I said, "I'm not an Outsider. I'm a teacher. Can you call your
mother tonight the way you did the day you and Gene had that fight?"

"A fight? Me and Gene?" The fight was obviously an event of the neolithic
period for Vincent. "Oh, yes, I remember. Yes, I guess I could, but she'll be
mad because I left-and I told-and-and-" Weeping was close again.

"You'll have to choose," I pointed out, glad to the bone, that it wasn't my
choice to make, "between letting the man die or having her mad at you. You
should have told then when you first knew about him."

"I didn't want to tell that I'd listened to the man-"

"Is he Russian?" I asked, just for curiosity's sake.

"I don't know," he said. "His words are strange. Now he keeps saying something