"Paul Preuss - Venus Prime 1 - Breaking Strain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Preuss Paul)

would ask her to recount what had happened to her yesterday, and she would recite in great detail events
that had occurred over three years ago. He rose abruptlyтАУsurprising himself, for he rarely varied his
work schedule. тАЬWould you like to go outside?тАЭ

She seemed as surprised as he.


The nurses grumbled and fussed over her, bundling her into wool trousers, flannel shirt, scarf, fur-lined
leather boots, a thick overcoat of some shiny gray quilted materialтАУa fabulously expensive wardrobe,
which she took for granted. She was fully capable of dressing herself, but she often forgot to change her
clothes. They found it easier to leave her in her robe and slippers then, pretending to themselves that she
was helpless. They helped her now, and she allowed it.

The doctor waited for her outside on the icy steps of the stone veranda, studying the French doors with
their peeling frames, the yellow paint pigment turning to powder in the dry, thin air. He was a tall and
very round man, made rounder by the bulk of his black Chesterfield coat with its elegant velvet collar.
The coat was worth the price of an average dwelling. It was a sign of the compromises he had made.

The girl emerged, urged forward by the nurses, gasping at the sharpness of the air. High on her cheeks
two rosy patches bloomed beneath the transparent surface of her blue-white skin. She was neither tall
nor unusually slender, but there was a quick unthinking certainty in her movements that reminded him
she was a dancer. Among other things.

He and the girl walked on the grounds behind the main building. From this altitude they could see a
hundred miles across the patchwork brown and white plains to the east, a desert of overgrazed, farmed-

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 ARTHUR C. CLARKE'S VENUS PRIME: VOLUME I

out grit. Not all the white was snow; some was salt. Afternoon sun glinted from the windows of a
moving magneplane heading south, too far away to see; ice-welded blades of brown grass crunched
under their feet where the sunlight had sublimed the snow cover.

The edge of the lawn was marked by bare cottonwoods planted close together, paralleling an ancient
wall of brownstone. The ten-foot electrified fence beyond the wall was almost invisible against the
mountainside, which rose abruptly into shadow; higher up, blue drifts of snow persisted beneath squat
junipers.

They sat on a bench in sunlight. He brought a chess pad from the pocket of his coat and laid it flat
between them. тАЬWould you like to play?тАЭ

тАЬAre you any good?тАЭ she asked simply.

тАЬFair. Not as good as you.тАЭ

тАЬHow do you know?тАЭ

He hesitatedтАУthey had played oftenтАУbut he was weary of challenging her with the truth. тАЬIt was in your
file.тАЭ