"Tim Lebbon - The Origin Of Truth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebbon Tim)

eye of a few drivers and there was always mistrust there, an animal fear of
the unknownтАФeven unknown peopleтАФin these times of peril. It made him realize
how little it had all really changed, how far humanity had not come, even
though it liked to think itself way and above the rest of nature. There were
those scientists who had claimed to be a few years away from the Theory of
Everything. Now those selfsame egotistical bastards were clouds of gas
radiating outward from the hub of humankind's doom.

Where that center was, few people knew any more. Those who did were dead,
mixing themselves with the scientists who had killed them, the laboratories
they had been working in, the clothes they were wearing, the test tubes and
the microscopes and the particle accelerators and the cultures and the
notebooks full of folly. тАж

"Dad, I want a pee," Gemma whined.

"Oh honey, you'll have to hold it for a while," Lucy-Anne said.

Doug glanced across at his wife. He'd been ignoring her. He saw her afresh for
the briefest instant and realized how much he loved her. He held back a
startled sob.

"But MumтАФ"

"Your mum's right, Gemma. Hold on tight and you can go soon."

"When?"

"Soon."

"ButтАФ"

"Gemma," Doug said, his voice low, "did you see the man on the TV?"

"Yes," she said quietly. "He was all тАж going."

"He had a nasty тАж it was a bug, Gemma. It's in the air where he was, and it's
spreading. We don't want to catch it, and if we stopтАФ"

"And I don't want you to catch it!" she spurted out, bursting into tears and
gasping great hitched sobs into the car. "I don't want you and Mummy to catch
it!"

Doug felt his temper rising and hated himself for it. She was terrified, she'd
seen people dying on TV, dying, for Christ's sake. At her age the worst he'd
ever seen was a squashed cat by the side of the road. He'd put flowers there,
tied to a lamppost. The cat had gone the next day. His child's mind had seen
death as a temporary state. Lucy-Anne had turned fully in her seat and was
hugging Gemma, soothing her with gentle Mum-words that Doug could not hear. He
reached out and patted his wife's behind, giving her a quick squeeze: all