"Kim Stanley Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

тАЬMy friends from the park live all over the cityтАФтАЭ
тАЬIтАЩve got a plan!тАЭ she said sharply.
тАЬOkay.тАЭ He shook his head, swallowed; tasted blood at the back of his throat.
тАЬWhat?тАЭ she said.
тАЬNothing,тАЭ he said automatically.
тАЬSomething,тАЭ she said, and reached in to touch the side of his head. тАЬTell me what
you just thought. Tell me quick, IтАЩve got to go, but I didnтАЩt like that look!тАЭ
He told her about it as briefly as he could. Taste of blood. Inability to make
decisions. Maybe it was sounding like he was making excuses for coming up to
warn her. She was frowning. When he was done, she shook her head.
тАЬFrank? Go see a doctor.тАЭ
тАЬI know.тАЭ
тАЬDonтАЩt say that! I want you to promise me. Make the appointment, and then go see
the doctor.тАЭ
тАЬOkay. I will.тАЭ
тАЬAll right, now IтАЩve got to go. I think theyтАЩve got you chipped. Be careful and go
right back home. IтАЩll be in touch.тАЭ
тАЬHow?тАЭ
She grimaced. тАЬJust go!тАЭ



A phrase which haunted him as he made the long drive south. Back to home; back to
work; back to Diane. Just go!
He could not seem to come to grips with what happened. The island was dreamlike
in the way it was so vivid and surreal, but detached from any obvious meaning.
Heavily symbolic of something that could nevertheless not be decoded. They had
hugged so hard, and yet had never really kissed; they had climbed together up a rock
wall, they had iceboated on a wild wind, and yet in the end she had been angry,
perhaps with him, and holding back from saying things, it had seemed. He wasnтАЩt
sure.
Mile after mile winged by, minute after minute; on and on they went, by the tens, then
the hundreds. And as night fell, and his world reduced to a pattern of white and red
lights, both moving and still, with glowing green signs and their white lettering
providing name after name, his feel for his location on the globe became entirely
theoretical to him, and everything grew stranger and stranger. Some kind of fugue
state, the same thoughts over and over. Obsession without compulsion. Headlights
in the rearview mirror; who could tell if they were from the same vehicle or not?
It became hard to believe there was anything outside the lit strip of the highway.
Once Kenzo had shown him a USGS map of the United States that had displayed
the human population as raised areas, and on that map the 95 corridor had been like
an immense Himalaya, from Atlanta to Boston, rising from both directions to the
Everest that was New York. And yet driving right down the spine of this great
density of his species he could see nothing but the walls of trees lining both sides of
the endless slot. He might as well have been driving south though Siberia, or over the
face of some empty forest planet, tracking some great circle route that was only
going to bring him back where he had started. The forest hid so much.