"Nancy Kress - Beggars 2 - Beggars and Choosers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

scan and Leisha Camden's face appeared.
"Drew! Have you heard?"
The man in the powerchair, upper body fanatically muscled
above his crippled legs, turned back to putting on his eye makeup.
He leaned into the dressing table mirror. "Heard what?"
"Did you see the six o'clock Times?"
"Leisha, I go on stage in fifteen minutes. I haven't listened to
anything." He heard the thickening in his own voice, and hoped
she didn't. Even after all this time. Even at just the sight of her
holo.
"Miranda and the Supers . . . Miranda . . . Drew, they've built
an entire island. Off the coast of Mexico. Using nanotech and the
atoms in seawater, and almost overnight!"
"An island," Drew repeated. He frowned into the mirror,
rubbed at his makeup, applied more.
"Not a floating construct. An actual island, that goes all the
way down to the continental shelf. Did you know about this?"
"Leisha, I have a concert in fifteen minutes . . ."
"You did, didn't you. You knew what Miranda was doing. Why
didn't you tell me?"
Drew turned his powerchair to face Leisha's golden hair, green
eyes, genemod perfect skin. She looked thirty-five. She was ninety-
eight years old.
 He said, "Why didn't Miranda tell you?"
Leisha's expression quieted. "You're right. It was Miranda's
place to tell me. And she didn't. There's a lot she doesn't tell me,
isn't there, Drew?"
A long moment passed before Drew said softly, "It isn't easy
being on the outside for a change, is it, Leisha?"
She said, equally softly, "You've waited a long time to be able
to say that to me, haven't you, Drew?"
He looked away. In the corner of the huge silent room some-
thing rustled: a mouse, or a defective 'bot.
Leisha said, "Are they moving to this new island? All twenty-
seven Supers?"
"Yes."
"No one in the scientific community even knew nanotech had
reached that capability."
"Nobody else's nanotech has."
Leisha said, "They're not going to let me on that island, are
they? At all?"
He listened to the complex undertones in her voice. Leisha's
generation of Sleepless, the first generation, could never hide their
feelings. Unlike Miranda's generation, who could hide anything.
"No," Drew said. "They're not."
"They'll shield the island with something that Terry Mwa-
kambe invents, and you'll be the only non-Super ever allowed to
know what they're doing there."
He didn't answer. A technician stuck his head diffidently in
the door. "Ten minutes, Mr. Arlen, sir."