"James Patrick Kelly - Dividing the Sustain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

save it to a scrapbook. The next day Rags would get an extra fruitfly.

Been got his first look at IlonaтАЩs scrapbook four days after heтАЩd moved in.
She had been brusque at first, treating Been as if he were some naive colonist. Been
wasnтАЩt sure how much Harlen Quellan might have told her about him and he saw no
need to reveal his secrets to her unnecessarily. But he made no pretense to belief in
Consensualism, and, if she had been paying any attention at all, she would have
noticed that many of the colonists had stopped treating Been as one of their own.
This was no doubt because Henk Krall had been lobbying to ban Been from the
Little Chin consensus once they arrived, for being recast without permission and for
other acts of egre-gious individuality. Of course, only Lars Benzonia himself,
founder of Little Chin, could call for a consensus on ostracism, but Krall was busy
laying the groundwork.

Lars Benzonia had first developed the principles of Consensualism while a
young man working his way across the Thousand Worlds as an itinerant biographer.
It wasnтАЩt until he was hired to write the biography of Gween Renkl, one of the
richest women on Nortroon, that he got the chance to put his philosophy into
practice. He struck up a friendship with GweenтАЩs son, Acoa Renkl, who stood to
inherit his motherтАЩs fortune, but had no idea what to do with it. Lars Benzonia gave
Acoa Renkl his mission in life: to help spread the harmony of collective thinking
throughout the galaxy. The galaxy had not been overly impressed with
Consensualism, however, especially after so many of its elders had gone stale
waiting for a consensus to form around their recastings. But a century after Lars
Benzonia and Acoa Renkl had first met, there were still enough Consensualists to
populate a colony on the world Renkl had bought for his friend.

On the sixth day, Ilona finally stopped smirking as Been stumbled through her
common room in creative discomfort. It was right after he tripped over a panel that
had not quite finished melting into the deckscape and crashed into one of her low
chairs, crushing it utterly. He rolled off the wreck-age, and stared at the
eight-centimeter gash in his forearm. His blood was pooling in a deck pocket. She
grudgingly went with him to BioCore and remained while Zelmet Emsley painted
artificial skin onto the cut. Emsley also took the opportunity to run a DNA scan; he
pronounced Been com-pletely homosexual. Been did not know quite what to make
of this since living with Ilona had only fueled his secret infatuation.

Even before he had moved into her spare hutch, Been had observed that Ilona
was on edgy terms with the crew, who sided with their captain in the dispute
between the Quellens. However, she was very friendly with Emsley. They chatted
easily. She made fun of the colonists; he filled her in on the latest shipтАЩs gossip.
When he asked after Rags, Been realized that Emsley had one of RagsтАЩs webs
framed on the bulkhead behind the intake counter.

тАЬIs she ready for another Rich?тАЭ EmsleyтАЩs talking head was grinning.

Ilona shrugged. тАЬIтАЩm not having any sex, so neither is she.тАЭ

тАЬRich?тАЭ said Been.