"James Patrick Kelly - St. Theresa of the Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Actually the tape was still rolling. On it you can see Terry glare at
her side of the audience and shake her head. I had to step away to get any
privacy. "Okay, Laszlo, what is it?"
"You tell me. Guy claims he's in charge of alien security. Says he's
been getting bad information from State and he's got three of his own staff
kneeling in his office saying Our Fathers. He thinks we must be on the
civilian side of Hanscom; doesn't know who our soldiers are but they're not
taking orders from him. He's talking major-league conspiracy, Sam; he says to
get the aliens the hell out. This is Purge country."
Twisted Logic waddled to my side almost before I could wave him over.
He had plenty of experience with terrorism. "Something is wrong?" He was not
giggling.
"The debate's over. Get back to your ship; there may be danger."
As the two aliens conferred the audience stirred uneasily. When Awful
Truth climbed down from his high chair, someone cried, "Take them!" The
Purgers surrounded the aliens and began to pray. Guardsmen appeared at the
exits. "Stop this, stop!" I shouted at Terry. Their escape seemingly cut off,
the aliens tucked their heads close to their squat bodies and sliced through
the crowd with a nightmarish agility. The soldiers raised their guns and
sighted but did not fire. With a whoosh the aliens punched through the walls.
There was an eerie second of silence as we all rushed to the plastic windows
of the sagging bubbletent to see what had happened. The aliens had bounced,
once, twice and come up bounding like frightened kangaroos. Awful Truth
jumped clear over the telelink truck on his way to the red silo down the
runway.
"To the ship," called a Purger.
"Go, go!"
The tent emptied. As Terry brushed past me I grabbed her and spun her
around. "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to unmask the devil."
"What?"
"We're boarding the ship."
I shook her, probably too hard. "Stop them, do you hear me. For God's
sake, stop them now!"
She turned her sad face up toward mine and sighed as if this were all
my fault. "For God's sake," she said, "I can't."
I could have hit her then. Her treachery had stripped away the veneer
of fair-minded reason; I was a raging fanatic. We were two of a kind, I saw
at last, and neither of us were saints.
"Let her go, Sam."
I turned to Nicole and saw something in her then that I had tried for
months not to see. She was, like Terry and I, a zealot. But while the fire
that burned in Terry's soul made her sad, while mine made me angry, Nicole's
burned with joy. Perhaps that was why I had missed it. I realized that I had
lost her.
Shaken, I let Terry go. For a moment we three stood looking at each
other in the now-empty room. We had known each other for fifteen years and we
were strangers.
"Let's go, Nicole," Terry said.
"Don't," said I, knowing better.