"Walter M. Miller - The Best of Walter M. Miller" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

"Sssshhhhhhhh!" He glanced at me irritably, then trans-ferred his individual attention back to the title
film.
"Sorry," I muttered. "Didn't know you listened to the opening spiel. It's always the same. "
He squirmed, indicating that he wanted me to scramтАФto leave him to his own devices.
I scrammed to the library, but the excited chant of the audio was still with me. ". . . Captain Chronos,
Custodian of Time, Defender of the Temporal Passes, Champion of the Temporal Guard. Fly with
Captain Chronos in his time-ship Century as he battles against those evil forces who wouldтАФ"
I shut the door for a little quiet, then went to the ency-clopedia shelf and took down "LAC-MOE."
An envelope fell out of the heavy volume, and I picked it up. Kenny's.
He had scrawled "Lebanon, do not open until 1964; value in 1954: 38┬в," on the face. I knew what
was inside without holding it up to the light: stamps. Kenny's idea of buried treasure; when he had more
than one stamp of an issue in his collection, he'd stash the duplicate away somewhere to let it age, having
heard that age increases their value.
When I finished reading the brief article, I went out to the kitchen. Cleo was bringing in a basket of
clothes. She paused in the doorway, the basket cocked on her hip, hair disheveled, looking pretty but
anxious.
"Did you see him?" she asked.
I nodded, unable to look at her, poured myself a drink. She waited a few seconds for me to say
something. When I couldn't say anything, she dropped the basket of clothes, scattering underwear and
linens across the kitchen floor, and darted across the room to seize my arms and stare up at me wildly.
Rod! It isn'tтАФ"
"


But it was. Without stopping to think, she rushed to the living room, seized Kenny in her arms, began
sobbing, then fled upstairs when she realized what she was doing.
Kenny knew he was sick. He knew several specialists had studied his case. He knew that I had gone
down to talk with Doc Jules this afternoon. After Cleo's reaction, there was no keeping the truth from
him. He was only fourteen, but within two weeks, he knew he had less than a year to live, unless they
found a cure. He pieced it to-gether for himself from conversational fragments, and chance remarks, and
medical encyclopedias, and by deftly questioning a playmate's older brother who was a medical student.

Maybe it was easier on Kenny to know he was dying, easier than seeing our anxiety and being
frightened by it without knowing the cause. But a child is blunt in his questioning, and tactless in matters
that concern himself, and that made it hell on Cleo.
"If they don't find a cure, when will I die?"
"Will it hurt?"
"What will you do with my things?"
"Will I see my real father afterwards?"
Cleo stood so much of it, and then one night she broke down and we had to call a doctor to give her
a sedative and quiet her down. When she was settled, I took Kenny out behind the house. We walked
across the narrow strip of pasture and sat on the old stone fence to talk by the light of the moon. I told
him not to talk about it again to Cleo, unless she brought it up, and that he was to bring his questions to
me. I put my arm around him, and I knew he was crying inside.
"I don't want to die."
There is a difference between tragedy and blind brutal calamity. Tragedy has meaning, and there is
dignity in it. Tragedy stands with its shoulders stiff and proud. But there is no meaning, no dignity, no
fulfillment, in the death of a child.
"Kenny, I want you to try to have faith. The research institutes are working hard. I want you to try to
have faith that they'll find a cure."