"Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann - The Starry Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

Being in space is nice, she thinks, just like those cartoons on television where the
characters bounce and dance in the sky, and she is moving too. But her moving is
only part of being a little sick and having an episode. Rachel knows there is no
reason to be frightened. Soon she will be back in her own bed with Mommy and
Daddy nearby, and she will once again look at all of the sketches that she has copied
at the museum. They are good sketches, whatever she might have felt before. That is
why they bought her the sketchbook, because she is good.

The man sitting in the space car is old, older than Daddy, and for a moment he does
not see her, so intent is he upon staring through the big window. But then he turns to
her suddenly and says: "Do I see what I think I see? But how can this be? From
where did you come, child?"

"My name is Rachel," she says. "I drew the stars nit."

"Look at that," he says. "Look out the window." And Rachel follows his finger.
There are the stars nits themselves. They look just like the painting.

The stars are exploding, and she wishes that she had brought her sketchpad so that
she could show it to the man. She feels strange here, like she always feels when she's
having an episode; but when she looks at her hands, she sees that they are glowing.
Her pajamas look funny too, as if light is pouring through the fabric from
underneath. She shakes her head. She cannot remember glowing before, not even
when everybody thought she was going to die that time in the hospital.

"For an old priest in a coffin to see this," the man says. "To witness the death of
everything, the death of time. But why have they sent you?"

"Nobody sent me," Rachel says. "I came myself. I can make myself go places;
sometimes I can be anywhere I want. I can draw the stars nits and even be in them.
Is that what you want?"

Rachel knows she is sick now. The sickness has come over her. She could bite her
tongue or hit herself or bang her head on the desk, but there is nothing to be done
about it. She's here with the priest in the space car. If she only had her sketchpad,
she could show him what she had done; but that is not to be.

"Oh, yes, child," the man says. "I know you can because you are here." He reaches
out to her, and there is no room for her to move; he touches her, then hovers close.
"Transubstantiation," he says. "It is the most remarkable thing." She feels him
shaking, even though they are not touching. "What have I believed?" he says. "For
what have I been given this?"

"What is transubтАФ? I don't understand." For the first time she is a little scared. She
wishes that she were in her room, not in this space car with the stars glowing and
exploding like the stars in Mr. Gogh's painting.

"I'll go back and find my drawing," she says. "Do you want to see my drawing of
this?" She waves her hand, leaving trails of light, points to the outside. "Yes, that is