"Ian R. Macleod - New Light On The Drake Equation" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

Tom laughed. Sometimes, you had to. "The tee-shirts never really took off тАж" He studied his glass,
which also had a scum of dust floating on it, like most of his life. The taste of this good wine-sitting
here-everything-was strange to him.

"Oh, and she sent me across the square to speak to this incredibly handsome waiter who works in this
caf├й. Apparently, you forgot these тАж" Terr reached into the top of her dress, and produced the cards he
must have left on the table. They were warm when he took them, filled with a sense of life and vibrancy
he doubted was contained in any of the messages. Terr. And her own personal filing system.

"And what about you, Terr?"

"What do you mean?"

"All these years, I mean I guess it's pretty obvious what I've been doing-"
"-which was what you always said тАж"

"Yes. But you, Terr. I've thought about you once or twice. Just occasionally тАж"

"Mmmm." She smiled at him over her glass, through the candlelight. "Let's just talk about now for a
while, shall we, Tom? That, is, if you'll put up with me?"

"Fine." His belly ached. His hands, as he took another long slug of this rich good wine, were still
trembling.

"Tom, you haven't said the obvious thing yet."

"Which is?"

"That I've changed. Although we both have, I suppose. Time being time."

"You look great."

"You were always good at compliments."

"That was because I always meant them."

"And you're practical at the bottom of it, Tom. Or at least you were. I used to like that about you, too.
Even if we didn't always agree about it тАж"

With Tom it had always been one thing, one obsession. With Terr, it had to be everything. She'd wanted
the whole world, the universe. And it was there even now, Tom could feel it quivering in the night
between them, that division of objectives, a loss of contact, as if they were edging back towards the
windy precipice which had driven them apart in the first place.

"Anyway," he said stupidly, just to fill the silence, "if you don't like how you look these days, all you do is
take a vial."

"What? And be ridiculous-like those women you see along Oxford Street and Fifth Avenue, with their
fake furs, their fake smiles, their fake skins? Youth is for the young, Tom. Always was, and always will