"Ursula K. LeGuin - Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Le Guin Ursula K)

"Why, yes. He certainly is not autistic."
"No, he's intolerable!"
"Well, you see," said Mannon, gazing mildly at the saliva-flecks on Porlock's mustache, "the normal
defensive-aggressive reaction between strangers meetingтАФlet's say you and Mr. Osden just for
exampleтАФis something you're scarcely aware of; habit, manners, inattention get you past it; you've
learned to ignore it, to the point where you might even deny it exists. However, Mr. Osden, being an
empath, feels it. Feels his feelings, and yours, and is hard put to say which is which. Let's say that there's
a normal element of hostility towards any stranger in your emotional reaction to him when you meet him,
plus a spontaneous dislike of his looks, or clothes, or handshakeтАФit doesn't matter what. He feels that
dislike. As his autistic defense has been unlearned, he resorts to an aggressive-defense mechanism, a
response in kind to the aggression which you have unwittingly projected onto him." Mannon went on for
quite a long time.
"Nothing gives a man the right to be such a bastard," Porlock said.
"He can't tune us out?" asked Harfex, the Biologist, another Hainishman.
"It's like hearing," said Olleroo, Assistant Hard Scientist, stopping over to paint her toenails with
fluorescent lacquer. "No eyelids on your ears. No Off switch on empathy. He hears our feelings whether
he wants to or not"
"Does he know what we're thinking?" asked Eskwana, the Engineer, looking round at the others in
real dread.
"No," Porlock snapped. "Empathy's not telepathy! Nobody's got telepathy."
"Yet," said Mannon, with his little smile. "Just before I left Hain there was a most interesting report in
from one of the recently discovered worlds, a hilfer named Rocannon reporting what appears to be a
teachable telepathic technique existent among a mutated hominid race; I only saw a synopsis in the HILF
Bulletin, butтАФ" He went on. The others had learned that they could talk while Mannon went on talking
he did not seem to mind, nor even to miss much of what they said.
"Then why does he hate us?" Eskwana said.
"Nobody hates you, Ander honey," said Olleroo, daubing Eskwana's left thumbnail with fluorescent
pink. The engineer flushed and smiled vaguely.
"He acts as if he hated us," said Haito, the Coordinator. She was a delicate-looking woman of pure
Asian descent, with a surprising voice, husky, deep, and soft, like a young bullfrog "Why, if he suffers
from our hostility, does he increase it by constant attacks and insults? I can't say I think much of Dr.
Hammergeld's cure, really, Mannon; autism might be preferable тАж "
She stopped. Osden had come into the main cabin.
He looked flayed. His skin was unnaturally white and thin, showing the channels of his blood like a
faded road map in red and blue. His Adam's apple, the muscles that circled his mouth, the bones and
ligaments of his wrists and hands, all stood out distinctly as if displayed for an anatomy lesson. His hair
was pale rust, like long-dried blood. He had eyebrows and lashes, but they were visible only in certain
lights; what one saw was the bones of the eye sockets, the veining of the lids, and the colorless eyes.
They were not red eyes, for he was not really an albino, but they were not blue or grey; colors had
canceled out in Osden's eyes, leaving a cold water-like clarity, infinitely penetrable. He never looked
directly at one. His face lacked expression, like an anatomical drawing or a skinned face.
 "I agree," he said in a high, harsh tenor, "that even autistic withdrawal might be preferable to the smog
of cheap secondhand emotions with which you people surround me. What are you sweating hate for
now, Porlock? Can't stand the sight of me? Go practice some auto-eroticism the way you were doing
last night, it improves your vibes. Who the devil moved my tapes, here? Don't touch my things, any of
you. I won't have it"
"Osden," said Asnanifoil in his large slow voice, "why are you such a bastard?"
Ander Eskwana cowered and put his hands in front of his face. Contention frightened him. Olleroo
looked up with a vacant yet eager expression, the eternal spectator.
"Why shouldn't I be?" said Osden. He was not looking at Asnanifoil, and was keeping physically as