"Nancy Kress - In a World Like This" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Helen, my secretary, comes in with a sheaf of papers. She looks distracted.
 "This is the agenda for Ken Robinson's meeting at ten, because he wants to be sure everyone sticks to
both the topic and the time frame. This is the script for the new training film, because the production
studio is booked for next Tuesday and they need copy approval. Your report for the senior staff isn't
done yet because the Xerox copier is down again."
"Christ."
"I think the copier is down because either the Corotron needs rewiring or the baffle spring is pulled off
the shaft."
I stare at her. Helen has trouble getting the top off a jar of coffee. "How do you know that?"
"I looked inside. I also leafed through the manual because I thought maybe I could fix it."
"But you can't. Nobody can fix those things, not even the tech rep, or they would stay fixed longer
than ten minutes after he leaves."
"The machines don't stay fixed because we run too much volume on them. That's because-"
"Helen," I say, with some irritation, "you aren't by any chance related to my wife, are you?"
She looks confused. "I don't think so."
"Good."

On the 6:17, Kip Lowry smacks his knee with his folded newspaper - the evening edition this time.
He has pulled his hat brim down lower than usual, and this strikes me as an ominous sign. Visible is his
lower jaw, bristling with a day's worth of dark stubble, which gives him a dangerous look. The hints Kip
drops about his project in information theory seem to mostly involve such tame and academic things as
mathematical formulas and high-speed computers, but it has nonetheless always seemed to me that there
is something inflamed about the look of Kip's jaw. Something needing only the right environment to erupt
into possibly contagious boils. The 6:17 seems an unlikely environment, but I don't like that smacking
newspaper.
"Colder tonight," I say. I am trying to make up for my morning rudeness.
Kip doesn't answer.
"Thought I'd cover the roses, even though it's early in the year for that. No pattern to the weather
lately. You should cover yours, too." Kip's roses are the most neglected in Hickory Village: spindly stems
and sparse blossoms. This gives me an obscure sense of cheerfulness.
Kip says, "Sandra is leaving me." Smack, smack.
After a pause I say, "I'm sorry." I know this is inadequate, but what else would be better? We don't
look at each other.
"After seventeen years," he says. A tear appears from beneath the lowered hat brim, and I am
disgusted with myself for feeling a profound distaste. Kip is, I suppose, the closest thing I have to a
friend. But on the 6:17?
"You'd think," he says, "that after seventeen years she'd be willing to ride this thing out."
"What thing?" I say, because I see I'm supposed to and despite a strong reluctance to ask.
"Lara Kashinsky."
"Lara Kashinsky?"
He stiffens. "Lara just happens to be one of the best random-information specialists in the world."
"I remember your saying that she's brilliant," I say hastily. I also remember her picture in the
newspapers, at the time of her defection. She must be well over fifty.
"I never thought Sandy would find out," Kip says gloomily. "And now she won't even listen. I didn't
plan the thing with Lara. It just happened."
"Ummm."
"These things happen," Kip says. He stops smacking the newspaper and stares out the train window,
at trees flashing past too fast to be counted.

"Janice called," Emily says over a late-night brandy. She tucks her hair behind her ears; this is a