"Kress, Nancy - The Flowers of Aulit Prison" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

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The next time we are herded from our cells into the dining hall and then the courtyard, the Huhuhub corpses are of course gone. Pek Walters has developed a cough. He walks more slowly, and once, on the way to our usual spot against the far wall, he puts a hand on my arm to steady himself.
"Are you sick, Pek?"
"Exactly," he says.
"But you are a healer. Make the cough disappear."
He smiles, and sinks gratefully against the wall. "'Healer, heal own self.'"
"What?"
"Nothing. So you are informer, Pek Bengarin, and you hope I tell you something about science experiments on children on World."
I take a deep breath. Pek Fakar passes us, carrying her gun. Two of her own people now stay close beside her at all times, in case another prisoner tries to take the gun away from her. I cannot believe anyone would try, but maybe I'm wrong. There's no telling what the unreal will do. Pek Walters watches her pass, and his smile is gone. Yesterday Pek Fakar shot another person, this time not even an alien. There is a note under my bed requesting more guns.
I say, "You say I am an informer. I do not say it."
"Exactly," Pek Walters says. He has another coughing spell, then closes his eyes wearily. "I have not an-tee-by-otics."
Another Terran word. Carefully I repeat it. "'An-tee-by-otics'?"
"Pro-teenz for heal."
Again that word for very small bits of food. I make use of it. "Tell me about the pro-teenz in the science experiments."
I tell you everything about experiments. But only if you answer questions first."
He will ask about my sister. For no reason other than rudeness and cruelty. I feel my face turn to stone.
He says, "Tell me why steal baby not so bad for make person unreal always."
I blink. Isn't this obvious? "To steal a baby doesn't damage the baby's reality. It just grows up somewhere else, with some other people. But all real people of World share the same reality, and anyway after the transition, the child will rejoin its blood ancestors. Baby stealing is wrong, of course, but it isn't a really serious crime."
"And make false coins?"
"The same. False, true -- coins are still shared."
He coughs again, this time much harder. I wait. Finally he says, "So when I steal your bicycle, I not violate shared reality too much, because bicycle still somewhere with people of World."
"Of course."
"But when I steal bicycle, I violate shared reality a little?"
"Yes." After a minute I add, "Because the bicycle is, after all, mine. You...made my reality shift a little without sharing the decision with me." I peer at him; how can all this not be obvious to such an intelligent man?
He says, "You are too trusting for be informer, Pek Bengarin."
I feel my throat swell with indignation. I am a very good informer. Haven't I just bound this Terran to me with a private shared reality in order to create an exchange of information? I am about to demand his share of the bargain when he says abruptly, "So why you kill your sister?"
Two of Pek Fakar's people swagger past. They carry the new guns. Across the courtyard a Faller turns slowly to look at them, and even I can read fear on that alien face.
I say, as evenly as I can manage, "I fell prey to an illusion. I thought that Ano was copulating with my lover. She was younger, more intelligent, prettier. I am not very pretty, as you can see. I didn't share the reality with her, or him, and my illusion grew. Finally it exploded in my head, and I...did it." I am breathing hard, and Pek Fakar's people look blurry.
"You remember clear Ano's murder?"
I turn to him in astonishment. "How could I forget it?"
"You cannot. You cannot because memory-building pro-teenz. Memory is strong in your brain. Memory-building pro-teenz are strong in your brain. Scientific research on World children for discover what is structure of pro-teenz, where is pro-teenz, how pro-teenz work. But we discover different thing instead."
"What different thing?" I say, but Pek Walters only shakes his head and begins coughing again. I wonder if the coughing spell is an excuse to violate our bargain. He is, after all, unreal.
Pek Fakar's people have gone inside the prison. The Faller slumps against the far wall. They have not shot him. For this moment, at least, he is not entering the second stage of his perpetual death.
But beside me, Pek Walters coughs blood.
* * * *
He is dying. I am sure of it, although of course no World healer comes to him. He is dead anyway. Also, his fellow Terrans keep away, looking fearful, which makes me wonder if his disease is catching. This leaves only me. I walk him to his cell, and then wonder why I can't just stay when the door closes. No one will check. Or, if they do, will care. And this may be my last chance to gain the needed information, before either Pek Walters is coffined or Pek Fakar orders me away from him because he is too weak to watch over my supposed blood sickness.
His body has become very hot. During the long night he tosses on his bunk, muttering in his own language, and sometimes those strange alien eyes roll in their sockets. But other times he is clearer, and he looks at me as if he recognizes who I am. Those times, I question him. But the lucid times and unlucid ones blur together. His mind is no longer his own.
"Pek Walters. Where are the memory experiments being conducted? In what place?"
"Memory...memories..." More in his own language. It has the cadences of poetry.
"Pek Walters. In what place are the memory experiments being done?"
"At Rafkit Sarloe," he says, which makes no sense. Rafkit Sarloe is the government center, where no one lives. It is not large. People flow in every day, running the Sections, and out to their villages again at night. There is no square measure of Rafkit Sarloe that is not constantly shared physical reality.
He coughs, more bloody spume, and his eyes roll in his head. I make him sip some water. "Pek Walters. In what place are the memory experiments being done?"
"At Rafkit Sarloe. In the Cloud. At Aulit Prison."
It goes on and on like that. And in the early morning, Pek Walters dies.
There is one moment of greater clarity, somewhere near the end. He looks at me, out of his old, ravaged face gone gaunt with his transition. The disturbing look is back in his eyes, sad and kind, not a look for the unreal to wear. It is too much sharing. He says, so low I must bend over him to hear, "Sick brain talks to itself. You not kill your sister."
"Hush, don't try to talk..."
"Find...Brifjis. Maldon Pek Brifjis, in Rafkit Haddon. Find..." He relapses again into fever.
A few moments after he dies, the armored guards enter the cell, wheeling the coffin full of bondage chemicals. With them is the priest. I want to say, Wait, he is a good man, he doesn't deserve perpetual death -- but of course I do not. I am astonished at myself for even thinking it. A guard edges me into the corridor and the door closes.
That same day, I am sent away from Aulit Prison.
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