"James Lovegrove - The House Of Lazarus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lovegrove James)

dog-tired, he might have done something about that look. Might have taken
her up on her silent offer.
"Next stop Eastport," chimed a disembodied voice. "Change at Eastport for
the Satellite Islands and the Coastal Route."
We have money. Were it properly investedЕ
It had all seemed so simple to her in the last dwindling days of her life,
with her body failing organ by organ. It had all seemed so clear, during
her moments of painful lucidity, at the ebbing of the tranquilliser-tide.
She didn't want to die, and here was her chance not to die.
I just need you to complete the form and give your consent.
What choice had he had?
It's what your father would have wanted, she had said.
She had been so sure.
There's plenty of money.
Had she known?
Isn't there?
Perhaps she had known. All along. Perhaps she had known, and had begged
him to sign anyway, not caring what it might cost him.
I can't do it without your signature, Joey. They have to have the consent
of a close relative.
And why hadn't he told her? Why had he kept his mouth shut? To spare her?
Or to spare himself?
The game-show gave way to a commercial break, which included an
advertisement for the House of Lazarus. Gordon Lazarus, sleek-haired
proprietor, delivered his pitch from a well-appointed office. He sat,
perched casually, yet in a bent-backed attitude of the utmost sympathy, on
the edge of a walnut desk, with a marble bust of some patrician-looking
Roman to his left and, to his right, a murky Augustan landscape in an
ornate gilt frame. He gazed unwaveringly into the camera.
"There comes a time when each of us has to say goodbye to someone we
love," he intoned. "For many, it is the most painful thing they will ever
have to do."
The camera glided slowly in.
"But what if you could be spared that pain? What if you were able to
remain in touch with your loved ones even after they had been taken from
you?"
A slow, snakelike smile. Cut to a moving crane-shot of the wall of fifty
thousand steel drawers.
Lazarus, in voice-over: "Here at the House of Lazarus, years of research
into cryogenic technology have borne fruit. The result? The actual moment
of passing may now be delayed indefinitely."
The camera continued its swoop, finding Gordon Lazarus at the foot of the
wall, standing in front of a family who were clustered around a single
headset in emulation of some long-forgotten pre-television tradition,
taking it in turns to talk to grandfather or great aunt or poor little
junior who was torn from this world far too soon. For bereaved people, the
family looked remarkably happy.
"Until recently, communication with the departed was the province of
mediums and clairvoyants," said Lazarus. "No more. Here at the House of
Lazarus we can keep your loved ones permanently at the threshold of the