"Continuing Time - 01 - Emerald Eyes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

In a park at the south end of Manhattan island, a telepathic human being named
Johann MacArthur sat with his back to a tree and watched children play in the
warm sunlight. He sat and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. The Weather Bureau said
that the day would be pleasant, but Johnny had learned, like everyone else, not
to trust anything the Bureau of Weather Control said.
The park was not large. It was in the shape of a rectangle less than a hundred
meters on its long axis, and only forty meters wide. It was enclosed, all the
way around, by a five-meter-high fence. There was no exit to the street. It
would not have been safe. Instead a tunnel walkway led from the center of the
park, under the street, and came back up across the street, inside the Chandler
Complex where the telepaths had been living for over half a year. The shade
trees scattered throughout the park obscured visibility enough to make the fence
difficult to see unless you were near the perimeter.
The children rarely approached the parkТs perimeter; it made it too easy to hear
the chanting of the picket lines. Today was particularly noisy; given
yesterdayТs vote, that was to be expected.
Johann sat in full lotus, eyes open and unfocused, wearing nothing but a pair of
shorts. It was unseasonably warm for early morning in March, and promised
genuine heat by noontime. He was a big blond man who looked too much like a
young Malko Kalharri for coincidence. Carl had told Johann that in the earlier
days of what the technicians hadЧonly half sarcasticallyЧnamed Project Superman,
many of the men in the staff had donated sperm cells for the genetic content.
Johann had never asked Malko if he had been one of those men; he had never cared
much whether any of his genes had come from Kalharri or not. At twenty-five
years of age, he was the third oldest telepath on Earth.
He didnТt feel very old, most of the time.
The park was quiet this early in the morning. About sixty of the children were
out playing, Johann guessed. The rest of the kids would be in one class or
another, except for the eight who were currently out on jobs for the
Peaceforcers.
He felt a certain grim satisfaction in the knowledge that those would be the
last eight.
A swift thought struck him; it came from Heather Castanaveras, the
fourteen-year-old girl who was teaching unarmed combat that morning to a class
composed largely of thirteen-and fourteen-year-olds, Johnny, have you seen
Trent?
Johann closed his eyes briefly, and with the Sight walked through the park
quickly. Althea, his lieutenant for the day, was leading her group in a game of
hide-and-seek played by rules no normal human could have understood. I donТt see
him, Heather.
Blue eyes isnТt in class again. The thought held frustration that approached
anger.
Johann sighed. Try not to get upset with him, Heather.
Why not?
HeТs not having an easy time with the Change. And besides, added Johann, todayТs
his birthday.
ItТs always somebodyТs birthday, snapped Heather, and cut the connection
abruptly.
Johann thought a moment. Trent had only turned eleven today; Heather had moved