"Gwyneth Jones - The Tomb Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones Gwyneth)

You had to excuse him (they did excuse him, they were very tolerant
of each otherтАЩs foibles. Sigurt shared this trait, or he could not have joined
them). You had to remind yourself that believing that the Earth was the
center of the cosmos had once been good science and sound common
sense, and many eminent scientists had clung to the old model, long after
the new facts arrived.

Diaspora-deniers favored the term тАЬbeings.тАЭ They thought it made
them sound rational and agnostic; which it did not. The rest of the Actives
called their illustrious friend an alien, without embarrassment, because at
home alien had become a term for the much-loved human practice of
bodymorphing, and theyтАЩd forgotten it might be offensive. Sigurt didnтАЩt
seem to mind. He called them тАЬBlues.тАЭ

He was not just eminent, he was an original, a Blue Planetophile. His
skill in тАЬBlueтАЭ languages had not been acquired for the sake of this trip; it
was his hobby in real life. He had no trouble dealing with Nadeem.

тАЬAh, good point.тАЭ He pondered, raising his eyebrows, which were
commas of black velvet, the same texture as the close mat of hair (or fur)
that covered his skull and extended down his neck and across his
shoulders, glimpsed at the throat of his ship-issue green jumper. тАЬLet me
think. No, IтАЩm sure тАШwifeтАЩ is correct. The wife is the one who remains, who
cannot tear herself away. This is social gender, not biology.тАЭ

Nadeem was not satisfied. Ideally, he explained, all self-respecting
other beings, when speaking human language, should call themselves itтАФ

Elen imagined a dry landscape, a dustbowl sky: parched mounds with
small stone markers (the graves she envisaged were Muslim, somehow).
The burial ground was sown with sad hunched shapes outside little
cardboard shacks; the villages were depopulated of grandmas. Did the
tomb-wives really choose seclusion? Or were they compelled by the iron
hand of custom? Which nobody inside the rules will ever admit is an
oppression. The blizzard outside ought to be a sandstorm, she thought, to
match their cargo. But it was whiteness she always imagined тАЬout there.тАЭ A
white darkness of quantum vacuum. She noticed that Sigurt had said wives,
not widows, though his English was very good; and she wondered about
that. They are not the widows of the dead but the wives of the tombs.

тАЬStop kidding yourself, Batman.тАЭ Nadeem was getting agitated. тАЬItтАЩs
not a one-off planetary evolution that we have in common, itтАЩs time, gravity,
hydrogen bonds. ItтАЩs an accident of convergent evolution that we look more
or less alike. YouтАЩve let yourself get sucked in to a cheap, tourist way of
thinking, denying your own difference, fantasizing that you can understand
usтАФтАЭ

тАЬYouтАЩre a racist jerk, Nadeem,тАЭ responded Sigurt amiably. тАЬAnyway,
you just did it yourself.тАЭ