"Nancy Kress - The Sleepless - Sleeping Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

Sleeping Dogs
by

Nancy Kress
"The new technologies will be dangerous as well as lib

But in the long run, social constraints must bend to new techno

тАФFreeman

"This is going to make all the difference in the world to us," Daddy says when the truck pulls into our yard. "A
difference in the world."
I pull my sweater tighter around me. Cool spring air comes in at my elbow, where the sweater has a hole. The truck, which is covered wit
from its trip up the mountain, bumps into a ditch in our driveway and then out of it again. Behind his glass window the driver makes
like he's cursing, but I can't hear him. What I can hear is Precious crying in the house. We don't have any more oatmeal left, and only a little
We surely need something to make all the difference in the world.
"Closer, closer . . . hold it!" Daddy yells. The driver ignores him. He stops the truck where he chooses, and the back door springs open
pens our dogs are going crazy. I walk around the back of the truck and look in.
Inside, there's nothing to see except a metal cage, the kind everybody uses to ship dogs. In the cage a bitch lies on her side. She's no spec
of dog, maybe some Lab, for sure some German shepherd, probably something else to give her that skinny tail. Her eyes are
soft as Precious's. She's very pregnant.
"Don't touch her, Carol Ann, stay off the truck, you don't know her disposition," Donna says, pushing me aside. There's no point in liste
Donna; she doesn't even listen to herself. She climbs into the truck she told me to stay out of and puts her hand into the cage, petting the bitc
crooning at it. "Hey there, sweetie, you old sweetie you, you're going to be lucky for us yes you are . . ."
Donna believes anything Daddy tells her.
I go around to the front of the truck, which has big orange letters saying STANLEY EXPRESS, in time to se
Arrowgene scientist get out. He has to be the scientist; nobody would hire him to be a trucker. He's the shortest ma
ever seen, slightly over five feet tall, and one of the skinniest, too. He's all dressed up in a business suit with a formal ve
commpin. I don't like his looksтАФhe's staring at Daddy like Daddy's some kind of oafтАФbut I'm interested. You'd
genemod scientists would make their own kids taller. Or maybe he's the first one in his family to be a scientist, and his p
were like us, regular people. That might explain why he's so rude to Daddy.
". . . understand that there is no way you can reach us, ever, for technical support. So ask any questions you migh
right now."
"I don't have no questions," Daddy says, which is true. He never has questions about anything, just goes ahead an
all enthusiastic about it and sails on like a high cloud on a March day, sunny and blue-sky right up until the second the
starts. And Donna's the same way.
"You're sure you have no questions?" the scientist asks, and his voice curls over on itself.
"No, sir," Daddy says.
"I have questions," I say.
The Arrowgene scientist looks at me like he's surprised I'm old enough to talk, even though I'm as tall as he i
seventeen but look a whole lot younger. Daddy says, "Carol Ann, I hear Precious crying. Shouldn't youтАФ"
"It's Donna's turn," I say, which is a laugh because Donna never tends to Precious, even though Donna's two years
than I am and should do more work. It isn't that Donna doesn't love Precious, she just doesn't hear the baby cry. D
doesn't hear anything she doesn't want to hear. She's like Daddy that way.
I say, "What if the litter the bitch is carrying turns out not to be genemod for what you say, after all? If we can't eve
you again for technical support, we can't ever find you again to get our money back."
He's amused, damn him. "That's true, young lady. Your father and I have been all over this, however. And I assur
that the puppies will have exactly the genetic modifications you requested."
"Big? Strong? All male?"
"Yes."