"Resnick, Mike - Hothouse Flowers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

======================
Hothouse Flowers
by Mike Resnick
======================

Copyright (c)1999 by Mike Resnick
Hugo Nominee

Fictionwise Contemporary
Science Fiction


---------------------------------
NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the purchaser. If you did not purchase this ebook directly from Fictionwise.com then you are in violation of copyright law and are subject to severe fines. Please visit www.fictionwise.com to purchase a legal copy. Fictionwise.com offers a reward for information leading to the conviction of copyright violators of Fictionwise ebooks.
---------------------------------


I TEST the temperature. It is 83 degrees, warm but not hot. Just right.
I spend the next hour puttering around, checking medications, adjusting the humidity, cleaning one of the life stations. Then Superintendent Bailey stops by on his way out to dinner.
"How are your charges doing?" he asks. "Any problems today?"
"No, sir, evrything's fine," I answer.
"Good," he says. "We wouldn't want any problems, especially not with the celebration coming up."
The celebration is the turn of the century, although there is some debate about that, because we are all preparing to celebrate the instant the clock hits midnight and 2200 A.D. begins, but some spoilsport scientists (or maybe they're mathematicians) have told the press that the new century really begins a year later, when we enter 2201.
Not that my charges know the difference, but I'm glad we're celebrating it this year, because it means that we'll decorate the place with bright colors -- and if we like it, why, we'll do it again in 2201.
* * * *
I have been married to Felicia for 17 years, and I hardly ever regret it. She was a little bit pudgy when we met, and she has gotten pudgier over the years so that now she is honest-to-goodness fat and there is simply no other word for it. Her hair, which used to be brown, is streaked with gray now, and she's lost whatever physical grace she once had. But she is a good life partner. Her taste in holos is similar to mine, so we almost never fight about what to watch after dinner, and of course we both love our work.
As we eat dinner, the topic turns to our gardens, as always.
"I'm worried about Rex," she confides.
Rex is Begonia rex, her hanging basket.
"Oh?" I say. "What's wrong with him?"
She shakes her head in puzzlement. "I don't know. Perhaps I've been letting him get too much sun. His leaves are yellowing, and his roots could be in better shape."
"Have you spoken to one of the botonists?"
"No. They're totally absorbed in cloning that new species of Aglaonema crispum."
"Still?"
She shrugs. "They say it's important."
"The damned plant's been around for centuries," I say. "I can't see what's so important about it."
"I told you: they engineered an exciting mutation. It actually glows in the dark, as if it's been dusted with phosphorescent silver paint."
"It's not going to put the energy company out of business."
"I know. But it's important to them."
"It seems unfair," I say for the hundredth, or maybe the thousandth, time. "They get all the fame and money for creating a new species, and you get paid the same old salary for keeping it alive."
"I don't mind," she replies. "I love my work. I don't know what I'd do without my greenhouse."
"I know," I say soothingly. "I feel the same way."
"So how is your Rex today?" she asks.
It's my turn to shrug. "About the same as usual." Suddenly I laugh.
"What's so funny?" asks Felicia.
"You think your Rex is getting too much sun. I decided my Rex wasn't getting enough, so this afternoon I moved him closer to a window."
"Will it make a difference, do you think?" she asks.
I sigh deeply. "Does it ever?"
* * * *
I walk up to the Major and smile at him. "How are we today?" I ask.