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

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?"