"Spider Robinson - And Subsequent Construction" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

swearing brilliantly in Russian, my own favorite language for cursing. He locked the
door behind them with his coded card, released her, and stepped past her to face
me.
"I'm sorry, darling," I blurted, springing to my feet. "I wasn't thinking clearly -- "
"In your place I think I might have done the same thing," he interrupted. "It was
a sweet, selfish, human thing to do. Nothing worth losing a mate like you over. Very
few things warp your judgment, my love: I'm flattered that the prospect of losing me
is one of them." He smiled, and burst into tears.
So I did too. We embraced fiercely.
"I know how I figured it out," I said when I could. "But how did you figure it out?"
"You'll like it," he promised. "Nothing I could think of could have suddenly made
you so bad a lover."
One of many reasons I love my Ted: he keeps his promises. I tightened my
embrace.
"You can't hold me," Jay snarled. "This can't be construed as a citizen's arrest:
nothing I've done is a felony." She poked futilely at the locked door.
"You seem to know me pretty well, sister," I said. "How much do I care for law?"
She paled. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked us.
"Your privilege, love," Ted said to me.
I nodded. "The nastiest, most sadistic, most poetically appropriate thing I can
think of," I told my twin. "We're going to try to heal you." She looked shocked.
"You're crippled with self-hatred, and I think we're just the two people who can fix
that."
"Without my consent? That's ... immoral."
"If you were anyone else," I said, "I would agree with you. I believe people have a
general right to keep their neuroses as long as they think they need them. But in this
special case, I cannot accept the risk. You're damn near as clever as me, and as long
as you remain damaged you will mean harm to Ted and me. I decline to spend the
rest of my life burning energy to stay a step ahead of you. Out of raw self-interest, I
propose to teach you things you don't want to learn, and keep you prisoner until
you've learned them." I smiled wickedly. "And make you like it. You'll thank me
when I'm done -- isn't that awful? Just remember: you asked for it."
She tried to attack me, but my husband is very quick and very strong. She ended
up with one arm wrenched up behind her.
"And if we can manage to fix the kink in your heart," I went on while she cursed
and struggled, "we're all going to track down your ex-husband -- Russian, like Ted,
isn't he? -- and try to heal your marriage. And if that works -- "
Ted was grinning broadly. " ... if that works," he finished for me, "the two of us
may just marry the two of you one day."
She was speechless.
"It's certainly worth thinking about," I agreed -- and suddenly it was as if two
continental plates had slipped inside my skull: a massive realignment that was over
in an instant. "Now if the two of you will excuse me," I said dizzily, "I've got a time
machine to invent. It just now came to me: two fields, almost but not quite identical,
just out of phase. If it works, I'll be waiting for you both at home when you get
there." I caught Ted's eye. "We'll lock her up in the guest room for the night, and
make other arrangements tomorrow. I'm going to make you write that song to me
retroactively, darling. Very retro, very actively."
"Yes, dear," he said mildly, and got the hell out of my lab, dragging Jay with him.
That's another reason I love him. He doesn't try to top my puns.