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

My chance has arrived, although not in a form I relish. Still, I have a job to do. I say, "I
have heard that Terrans will kill people for science. Even babies. To find out the kinds of
things that Anna Pek Rakov knew about my brain. Is that true?"
"Yes and no."
"How can it be yes and no? Are children ever used for science experiments?"
"Yes."
"What kinds of experiments?"
 "You should ask, what kind children? Dying children. Children not born yet. Children born ...
wrong. With no brain, or broken brain."
I struggle with all this. Dying children ... he must mean not children who are really dead,
but those in the transition to join their ancestors. Well, that would not be so bad, provided
the bodies were then allowed to decay properly and release the souls. Children without brains
or with broken brains ... not bad, either. Such poor unreal things would be destroyed anyway.
But children not born yet ... In or out of the mother's womb? I push this away, to discuss
another time. I am on a different path.
"And you never use living, real children for science?"
He gives me a look I cannot read. So much of Terran expression is still strange. "Yes. We
use. In some experiments. Experiments who not hurt children."
"Like what?" I say. We are staring directly at each other now. Suddenly I wonder if this old
Terran suspects that I am an informer seeking information, and that is why he accepted my
skimpy story about having spells. That would not necessarily be bad. There are ways to
bargain with the unreal once everyone admits that bargaining is what is taking place. But I'm
not sure whether Pek Walters knows that.
He says, "Experiments who study how brain work. Such as, how memory work. Including
shared memory."
"Memory? Memory doesn't 'work.' It just is."
"No. Memory work. By memory-building pro-teenz." He uses a Terran word, then adds, "Tiny
little pieces of food," which makes no sense. What does food have to do with memory? You
don't eat memories, or obtain them from food. But I am further down the path, and I use his
words to go further still.
"Does memory in World people work with the same ... 'pro-teenz' as Terran memory?"
"Yes and no. Some same or almost same. Some different." He is watching me very closely.
"How do you know that memory works the same or different in World people? Have Terrans
done brain experiments on World?"
"Yes."
"With World children?"
"Yes."
I watch a group of Huhuhubs across the courtyard. The smelly little aliens are clustered
together in some kind of ritual or game. "And have you, personally, participated in these
science experiments on children, Pek Walters?"
He doesn't answer me. Instead he smiles, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear the smile
was sad. He says, "Pek Bengarin, why you kill your sister?"
The unexpectedness of it -- now, so close to almost learning something useful -- outrages
me. Not even Pek Fakar has asked me that. I stare at him angrily. He says, "I know, I not
should ask. Wrong for ask. But I tell you much, and answer is important -- "
"But the question is obscene. You should not ask. World people are not so cruel to each
other."
"Even people damned in Aulit Prison?" he says, and even though I don't know one of the
words he uses, I see that yes, he recognizes that I am an informer. And that I have been
seeking information. All right, so much the better. But I need time to set my questions on a