"Light of Other Days by Bob Shaw" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Award Stories 2)

the realization that people who say they want children later
always mean they want children never. Our nerves were
thrumming with the knowledge that we, who had thought
ourselves so unique, had fallen into the same biological trap
as every mindless rutting creature which ever existed.
The road took us along the southern slopes of Ben Cru-
achan until we began to catch glimpses of the gray Atlantic far
ahead. I had just cut our speed to absorb the view better when
I noticed the sign spiked to a gatepost. It said: "SLOW
GLASSQuality High, Prices LowJ. R. Hagan." On an
impulse I stopped the car on the verpe, wincing slightly as
tough grasses whipped noisily at the bodywork.
"Why have we stopped?" Selina's neat, smoke-silver head
turned in surprise.
"Look at that sign. Let's go up and see what there is. The
' stuff might be reasonably priced out here."
Selina's voice was pitched high with scorn as she refused,
but I was too taken with my idea to listen. I had an illogical
conviction that doing something extravagant and crazy would
set us right again.
"Come on," I said, "the exercise might do us some good.
Wf'" 'reen driving too long anyway."
She shrugged in a way that hurt me and got out of the car.
We walked up'a path made of irregular, packed clay steps
nosed with short lengths of sapling. The path curved through
trees which clothed the edge of the hill and at its end we found
a low farmhouse. Beyond the little stone building tall frames
of slow glass gazed out towards the voice-stilling sight of
Cruachan's ponderous descent towards the waters of Loch
Linnhe. Most of the panes were perfectly transparent but a
few were dark, like panels of polished ebony.
As we approached the house through a neat cobbled yard a
tall middle-aged man in ash-colored tweeds arose and waved
to us. He had been sitting on the low rubble wall which
bounded the yard, smoking a pipe and staring towards the
house. At the front window of the cottage a young woman in
a tangerine dress stood with a small boy in her arms, but she
turned disinterestedly and moved out of sight as we drew near.
"Mr. Hagan?" I guessed.
"Correct. Come to see some glass, have you? Well, you've
come to the right place." Hagan spoke crisply, with traces of
the pure highland which sounds so much like Irish to the
unaccustomed ear. He had one of those calmly dismayed
faces one finds on elderly roadmenders and philosophers.
"Yes," I said. "We're on holiday. We saw your sign."
Selina, who usually has a natural fluency with strangers,
said nothing. She was looking towards the now empty window
with what I thought was a slightly puzzled expression.
"Up from London, are you? Well, as I said, you've come to
the right placeand at the right time, too. My wife and I