"David Marusek - Getting to Know You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marusek David)

substandard.

Nancy ambulated to the kitchen balancing a small, flat carton on her
walker and placed it next to the teapot.

тАЬNow, now,тАЭ said Victor. тАЬWhat did autodoc say about lifting things?
Come, join us and have your tea.тАЭ

тАЬIn a minute, Victor. ThereтАЩs another box.тАЭ

тАЬShow me,тАЭ he said and went to help her.

Zoranna tasted the dark cake. It was moist to the point of wet, too
sweet, and laden with spice. She recalled her father buying cakes like this
at a tiny shop on Paderszewski Boulevard in Chicago. She took another bite
and examined NancyтАЩs carton. It was a home archivist box that could be
evacuated of air, but the seal was open and the lid unlatched. She lifted the
lid and saw an assortment of little notebooks, no two of the same style or
size, and bundles of envelopes with colorful paper postal stamps. The
envelope on top was addressed in hand script to a Pani Beata
SmolenskaтАФZorannaтАЩs great-grandmother.

Victor dropped a second carton on the counter and helped Nancy sit
in her armchair recliner in the living room.

тАЬNancy,тАЭ said Zoranna, тАЬwhatтАЩs all this?тАЭ

тАЬItтАЩs all yours,тАЭ said her sister. Victor fussed over NancyтАЩs pillows and
covers and brought her tea and cake.

Zoranna looked inside the larger carton. There was a rondophone and
several inactive holocubes on top, but underneath were objects from earlier
centuries. Not an-tiques, exactly, but worn-out everyday objects: a sterling
salt cellar with brass showing through its silver plating, a collection of
military bullet casings childishly glued to an oak panel, a rosary with corn
kernel beads, a mustache trimmer. тАЬWhatтАЩs all this junk?тАЭ she said, but of
course she knew, for she recognized the pair of terra-cotta robins that had
belonged to her mother. This was the collection of what her family regarded
as heirlooms. Nancy, the youngest and most steadfast of seven children,
had ap-parently been designated its conservator. But why had she brought
it out for airing just now? Zoranna knew the an-swer to that, too. She looked
at her sister who now lay among the hospice patients. Victor was scolding
her for not wearing her vascular support stockings. Her ankles were
grotesquely edematous, swollen like sausages and bruised an angry
purple.

Damn you, Zoranna thought. Bug, she tongued, call up the medical
records of Nancy Brim, nee Smolenska. IтАЩll help munch the passwords.

The net is unavailable, replied Bug.