"Jay Lake - The Dead Man's Child" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lake Jay)

The Captain considered this. All things are the same to the Captain, as anyone who did not sleep through
the teaching circle knows, but he was well aware that time differed for the people who lived within the
linear flow of tauons.
"So with no Crew, why do the Regulations matter to you?"
The man grinned. "There is provision here for passengers, colonists and cargo to be brevetted to Crew."
"Of course," said the Captain, whose memory was utterly holographic, though his command of it was
sometimes imperfect. "Section Twenty Three, Subsection Fourty One Alpha, Grid Eff Ess Seventeen,
Paragraphs One Hundred Eleven through One Hundred Twenty Nine inclusive."
"Uh...yes."
"But only Crew can brevet someone," the Captain continued.
"And if I ever find Crew ..." The man's voice trailed off. "Of course. But you are not in uniform."
"The uniform does not create the Crew." The Captain stared into the man's soul, measured the density of
his bones and durability of his genome. "I have need of a pilot. Will you take service with me as I go to
walk the high lines?"
"Of course," said the man, who had hoped a good many years for this moment.

And so they went, stepping into the space between spaces, leaving behind the man's native frames, with
no word for his wife and unborn child, heading for high lines and the gentle polishing of starlight.
###
"But I still do not know what the high lines are," Marguerite says, her voice trembling with unshed tears.
Visions of water boats pass in her head, as if there were ever enough water to float something that big.
"Nor even what a pilot does. Not here, on Ship."

Mr Grieve looks around the teaching circle. "What does Marguerite's story tell us of life? Roald?"
Roald shuffles and slowly draws his finger from his nose. "Not to talk to strangers ...?"
"Logic?"
Logic stares blankly a moment, then shakes her head. "Reading Regulations isn't such a good idea."
"Brangwyn?"
"Opportunity walks the frames in strange costumes." Brangwyn, after Marguerite herself, is easily the
strangest child in Mr Grieve's teaching circle.
"Fair enough," he says, looking around.

Marguerite finds herself studying him closely, to see if her teacher is breathing or not.

"Here is what we know of life from this story," he continues. "That to reach for choice is to open
irrevocable paths. You can herd sheep and tend air exchangers all your life, and be happy, healthy and
whole. Or you can look past yourself, into a larger life, and accept the risks that pass your way, though
the price might be impossibly high." He glances at Marguerite. "A child with one parent, talking to
whispering bones during the dark watches. I advise simplicity in life. Choice kills."
"And choice can make you great," says Marguerite stubbornly.
"Of course." Mr Grieve sounds surprised. "Without risk, there is no reward."
"So tell me of the high lines."
The conversation has narrowed to the two of them, the other children losing dimensionality.
"If I do, you might never come back to this life."
This life? Her mother, miserable, and the whispering, star-polished bones? "Tell me," she insists.
And so he does.
 ###
The Festival of Choosing is bleak in these frames, since a child and a teacher have vanished together.
Some whisper of illicit couplings in distant frames where morals are lax and the old, proper customs have
been abandoned. Others talk quietly of murder and dismemberment and dreadful crimes.