"Kelly,_James_Patrick_-_St._Theresa_of_the_Aliens" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Nicole stiffened. "That's your prescription, Doctor? Get yourself some nice warm sex and call in the morning?"
All the warning signs were up but I refused to see them. "Never failed yet," I said with a leer. "Let's not talk about Terry. We always end up fighting."
"O.K. Let's talk about us." She considered. "I missed my period. I wasn't going to tell you until after the press conference but ..."
"You're pregnant? But I've been taking my pills."
"I don't know yet. I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday."
"Nicole, those pills are ninety-nine and nine tenths."
"I know. Do you believe in miracles?"
I think I must have laughed at that. "Are you going to have it?"
"What do you mean, have it?" In that moment she was the only alien in the world. Her voice made me shiver.
"I mean that ... I mean there's a choice."
"What would you do?"
"I'll do what you want," I said.
"You mean you'll go along with what I want. Even if you don't really want a baby?"
"I didn't say that."
"You don't have to. Your face says it for you."
It was one of the few times I wished that Nicole was the kind of woman you read about in books, the kind who run out of rooms crying. Nicole never turned away from trouble. "Look, honey, it's late and you've just sprung a hell of a surprise on me. I love you. I can't help it if my face looks like oatmeal. Let's go back to bed and give it a rest until morning. We'll both be thinking clearer then." I offered her my hand.
She did not take it. "All right, Sam. But there's no choice involved, do you understand? No choice at all."
The argument flared for a week and was never satisfactorily extinguished, only left alone by mutual consent to smoulder. I know she thought I did not want the child; maybe she was right.
It was the first real fight we had ever had.
* * * *
Needless to say, I was not at my best for the press conference. It was held in a bubble tent set up on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base. Nearby was the jump ship, which looked to me like a silo. A translucent dome atop a rotating red cylinder, perched on a fence of duraplas pickets. They say that the orbiting mother ship carries thirty in its hold; most of those had already landed in the U.S.S.R. Aliens can control their external bodies only at short distances, so most of our meetings have taken place on runways or other large open spaces.
The alien's name was Twisted Logic. Nicole believed that the aliens were twitting us in their use of the English language. That may well be, but the joke was the same in Russian, Spanish and Chinese. Twisted Logic stood on a specially-built platform; he was less than a meter tall. The President sat beside the alien looking like a man who has just gotten a pink slip in his pay envelope. Twisted Logic was red and shiny like a new plastic firetruck. He was not wearing any clothes but then he did not need any, not having any sex. He requested, however, that we not refer to him as an "it." His tail wagged when he talked. The tail was a wonderful touch; how can you distrust a creature with a wagging tail?
You can still view the tape of that first press conference on Infoline. Most of the early questions had to do with why the aliens chose to land in Russia. Twisted Logic explained the similarities between alien political philosophy and communism. He cited the Leonov space station and the two Mars expeditions as evidence that the Soviet space program was far more advanced than ours. He said that the aliens were worried about security here. When he mentioned the bombing of the U.N. there was a low chorus of groans and even some hisses. Although he spoke in a high-pitched cartoon voice and giggled a lot and was as cute as a puppy, talking about the destruction of the U.N. was unforgiveable. You could feel the press corps turning against him.
"Mr. Logic," said one conservative pundit with heavy sarcasm, "Mr. Logic, isn't your avowed bias toward the Soviet Union a tacit endorsement of the suppression of human rights there? What conclusions would you expect the American people to draw from the current situation, sir?"
Twisted Logic giggled. "The rights of the one versus the rights of the many. We have resolved this conflict to our satisfaction. You have not. Infer only that we await your enlightenment and will instruct if asked."
"Why have you come to earth?" called another.
He nodded. "Because you could not come to us."
"What's that supposed to mean?" someone shouted. The room filled with cries of derision.
"My response lacks content?" Twisted Logic looked for help to the President, who looked away. "Pardon. We bring ourselves to you because we are impatient for friends."
He might have made some friends had he continued in that vein. I tried to help him along. "Sir, we all recognize that your science is very advanced. Can we expect you to share your knowledge and technology with us? In particular, will you teach us to build star ships of our own?"
"Exactly." He pointed at me and nodded again. "Exactly. The universe is very large and we are very small. Intelligence must coalesce to grow."
"Coalesce?" whispered the woman sitting next to me. "Coalesce?"
"Sir!" Father Estragon from the Logos channel waved at the alien. He was Terry Burelli's favorite telelink commentator. "Sir, as you may know, many of our most diffcult problems on this planet arise out of religious factionalism. Would you comment please on your own religious beliefs."
"I hold no such beliefs."
Estragon turned as white as his Roman collar. "You don't believe in God?"
"When there is no evidence," said Twisted Logic, tail wagging, "the theory is discarded."
In a bar afterwards Joe Perkins from the Times nicely summed up the play that the press conference was going to get. "Godless commies from outer space," he said.
There were no more press conferences. Access to Twisted Logic and the other aliens who eventually came to this country had to be approved by the State Department. Congress passed the Alien Secrets Act which allowed instant classification of any alien remark deemed "controversial." It proved unenforceable once Twisted Logic took his space silo on a so-called "Goodwill Tour" of the world, a tour which was haunted by demonstrations, riots and misunderstanding.
All things considered, the reaction from the Vatican was circumspect. They insisted on the eternal truth of Divine Revelation and announced that the Pope would begin saying a special Mass on the first Sunday of each month for the souls of the aliens. For the most part the East did not care. The Buddhists regarded the aliens as part of the general anitya of the universe; they too would pass and so no action was indicated. Most Hindus were willing to tolerate the alien heresy as long as it did not lead to social upheavals. The reaction from Islam was less tempered. There was talk of spiritual jihad, although how this might be accomplished was not immediately clear. The Shiite imams had a more concrete program: expel the aliens. The First National Baptists and the Moonies and the Brides of Christ agreed.
If the Brides of Christ ruled the world, there would be two classes of citizens: Roman Catholics and the damned. Their battle plan in the war for souls is an abrupt about-face and a forced march into the past. Do away with Vatican II, the Protestant Reconciliation, secularized clergy. It seems that they are everywhere these days, working even the smallest crowds in their severe black uniforms, an affectation of the habits formerly worn by nuns and priests. Yes, men join too, although the symbolism of a man marrying Christ is jarring. Fanatics do not worry about these things. The Pope does not yet recognize their activities but neither can he afford to interdict them. Millions have left the faith; groups like the Brides dominate the remainder of his dwindling flock. He is already a prisoner of their politics; soon they will be the Church. As Terry Burelli marched through their ranks they came to the center of the anti-alien coalition known as the Purgers.
* * * *
Top management at InfoLine quickly discovered that the public's interest in the aliens was insatiable and so they spun off a special interest channel, AlienLine. I was put in charge of the start-up. Although the assignment was a career coup, I could no longer work from my home terminal or even from InfoLine's headquarters in Philadelphia. I was often away from Nicole two or three nights a week. It was a difficult time for both of us because her pregnancy was not going well. For weeks it seemed as if all she could keep down were unsalted crackers and water. I tried as best I could do be the doting husband and proudly expectant father but there was the subscription rate for AlienLine to worry about and plane reservations to Washington and the problem of finding staff who could tell an adjective from an adverb. Sometimes I felt as if I had been split into two people, neither of which liked the other very much.
Nicole and I had never really fought before she got pregnant; now we seemed to be making up for lost time. We argued about money, about politics, about the aliens, even about what to watch on telelink. We never shouted or slammed doors or cried; we just sniped at each other and then were horrified afterward.
"Wallace?" said Nicole. "Wallace?" She lay on the couch with her feet raised on a pile of pillows; she was having circulation problems. "Wallace is a fat man with suspenders smoking a cigar. Our son isn't going to wear suspenders, is he, Sam? And you're not fat."
"Walter?" I read from Name Your Baby. "Ward? Warren?"
"Wally." She chuckled. "What a lousy nickname." She shifted her weight restlessly; she could never seem to get comfortable. "I was thinking that Terry should be the godmother."
"What?" I closed the book.
"I know you don't like her that much but ..."
"Back up. Who said our kid was going to be baptised?"
She rolled over. "Sam, it couldn't hurt."