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

shape and probably not long for this world. Kenny had stage fright, his voice trembled, and he blurted
something about the search for a cure. Cleo stared at the boy instead of the set, and my own glance
darted back and forth. The cameraman panned to the empty chair and dollied in slowly so that the
placard came to fill the screen while Kenny spoke. Kenny talked about stamp collections and time
machines and autographs, while an invisible audience gaped at pathos.
"If anybody ' s got stamps to trade, just let me know," he said. "And autographs ..."
I winced, but Sanders cut in. "Well, KennyтАФwe're not supposed to mention your address, but if any
of you Guardsmen out there want to help Kenny out with his stamp collection, you can write to me, and
I'll definitely see that he gets the letters."
 "And autographs too," Kenny added.
When it was over, Kenny had lived . . . but lived.
And then the mail came in a deluge, forwarded from the network's studio. Bushels of stamps, dozens
of autograph books, Bibles, money, advice, crank letters, and maudlin gushes of sugary sympathy . . .
and a few sensi-ble and friendly letters. Kenny was delighted.
"Gee, Dad, I'll never get all the stamps sorted out. And look!тАФan autograph of Calvin Coolidge! . . ."
But it never turned him aside from his path of confident but mysterious purpose. He spent even more
time in his room, in the garage, andтАФwhen he could muster the energyтАФback in the maple woods, doing
mysterious things alone.
"Have they found a cure yet, Dad?" he asked me pleas-antly when an expected letter came.
They're ... making progress," I answered lamely.
"


He shrugged. "They will . . . eventually." Unconcerned.

It occurred to me that some sort of psychic change, unfathomable, might have happened within
himтАФsome sudden sense of timelessness, of identity with the race. Something that would let him die
calmly as long as be knew there'd be a cure someday. It seemed too much to expect of a child, but I
mentioned the notion to Jules when I saw him again.
"Could be," be admitted. "It might fit in with this se-crecy business."
"How's that?"
"People who know they're dying often behave that way. Little secret activities that don't become
apparent until after they're gone. Set up causes that won't have effects until afterwards. Immortality
cravings. You want to have posthumous influence, to live after you. A suicide note is one perversion of it.
The suicide figures the world will posthumously feel guilty, if he tells it off."
And Kenny ... '!"
"


"I don't know, Rod. The craving for immortality is basically procreative, I think. You have children,
and train them, and see your own mirrored patterns live on in them, and feel satisfied, when your time
comes. Or else you sublimate it, and do the same thing for all humanityтАФthrough art, or science. I've
seen a lot of death, Rod, and I believe there's more than just-plain-selfishness to peo-ple's
immortality-wishes; it's associated with the human reproductive syndromeтАФwhich includes the passing
on of culture to the young. But Kenny's just a kid. I don't know."
Despite Kenny's increasing helplessness and weakness, he began spending more time wandering out
in the woods. Cleo chided him for it, and tried to limit his excursions. She drove him to town on alternate
days for a transfusion and shots, and she tried to keep him in the house most of the time, but he needed
sun and air and exercise; and it was impossible to keep him on the lawn. Whatever he was doing, it was
a shadowy secretive business. It involved spades and garden tools and packages, with late excursions