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

wheel my bicycle -- not, alas, as interestingly curved as the messenger's -- out of its shed
and pedal down the dusty road toward the city.


Frablit Pek Brimmidin is nervous. This interests me; Pek Brimmidin is usually a calm,
controlled man, the sort who never replaces reality with illusion. He's given me my previous
jobs with no fuss. But now he actually can't sit still; he fidgets back and forth across his small
office, which is cluttered with papers, stone sculptures in an exaggerated style I don't like at
all, and plates of half-eaten food. I don't comment on either the food or the pacing. I am fond
of Pek Brimmidin, quite apart from my gratitude to him, which is profound. He was the official
in R&A who voted to give me a chance to become real again. The other two judges voted for
perpetual death, no chance of atonement. I'm not supposed to know this much detail about
my own case, but I do. Pek Brimmidin is middle-aged, a stocky man whose neck fur has just
begun to yellow. His eyes are gray, and kind.
"Pek Bengarin," he says, finally, and then stops.
"I stand ready to serve," I say softly, so as not to make him even more nervous. But
something is growing heavy in my stomach. This does not look good.
"Pek Bengarin." Another pause. "You are an informer."
"I stand ready to serve our shared reality," I repeat, despite my astonishment. Of course
I'm an informer. I've been an informer for two years and eighty-two days. I killed my sister,
and I will be an informer until my atonement is over, I can be fully real again, and Ano can be
released from death to join our ancestors. Pek Brimmidin knows this. He's assigned me every
one of my previous informing jobs, from the first easy one in currency counterfeiting right
through the last one, in baby stealing. I'm a very good informer, as Pek Brimmidin also knows.
What's wrong with the man?
Suddenly Pek Brimmidin straightens. But he doesn't look me in the eye. "You are an
informer, and the Section for Reality and Atonement has an informing job for you. In Aulit
Prison."
So that's it. I go still. Aulit Prison holds criminals. Not just those who have tried to get
away with stealing or cheating or child-snatching, which are, after all, normal. Aulit Prison
holds those who are unreal, who have succumbed to the illusion that they are not part of
shared common reality and so may do violence to the most concrete reality of others: their
physical bodies. Maimers. Rapists. Murderers.
Like me.
I feel my left hand tremble, and I strive to control it and to not show how hurt I am. I
thought Pek Brimmidin thought better of me. There is of course no such thing as partial
atonement -- one is either real or one is not -- but a part of my mind nonetheless thought
that Pek Brimmidin had recognized two years and eighty-two days of effort in regaining my
reality. I have worked so hard.
He must see some of this on my face because he says quickly, "I am sorry to assign this
job to you, Pek. I wish I had a better one. But you've been requested specifically by Rafkit
Sarloe." Requested by the capital; my spirits lift slightly. "They've added a note to the
request. I am authorized to tell you the informant job carries additional compensation. If you
succeed, your debt will be considered immediately paid, and you can be restored at once to
reality."
Restored at once to reality. I would again be a full member of World, without shame.
Entitled to live in the real world of shared humanity, and to hold my head up with pride. And
Ano could be buried, the artificial chemicals washed from her body, so that it could return to
World and her sweet spirit could join our ancestors. Ano, too, would be restored to reality.
"I'll do it," I tell Pek Brimmidin. And then, formally, "I stand ready to serve our shared