"Spider Robinson - Telempath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

Then I looked down at what was underneath the gauze IтАЩd just peeled off, saw the black streaks on the chocolate
brown of my arm, and the temptation to set a spell vanished like an overheated Musky.
I looked closer, and began whistling тАЬGood Morning HeartacheтАЭ very softly through my teeth. I had no more
neosulfa, damned little bandage for that matter, and it looked like I should save what analgesics I had to smoke on
the way home. The best thing I could do for myself was to finish up in the city and get gone, find a Healer before my
arm rotted.
And all at once that was fine with me. I remembered the two sacred duties that had brought me to New York; one
to my father and my people, and one to myself. I had nearly died proving to my satisfaction that the latter was
impossible; the other would keep me no great long time. New York and I were, as Bierce would say, incompossible.
One way or another, it would all be over soon.
I carefully rebandaged the gangrenous arm, hoisted the rucksack and went back outside, popping a foodtab and a
very small dosage of speed as I walked. ThereтАЩs no point in bringing real food to New YorkтАФyou canтАЩt taste it
anyway and it masses so damned much.

The sun was perceptibly lower in the skyтАФthe day was in catabolism. I shifted my shoulders to settle the pack
and continued on up the street, my eyes straining to decipher faded signs.
Two blocks up I found a shop that had specialized in psychedelics. A тАЩ79 Ford shared the display window with
several smashed hookahs and a narghile or two. I paused there, sorely tempted again. A load of pipes and papers
would be worth a good bit at home; Techno and Agro alike would pay dearly for fine-tooled smoking goodsтАФmore
evidence that, as Dad is always saying, technologyтАЩs usefulness has outlasted it.
But that reminded me of my mission again, and I shook my head savagely to drive away the daydreaming that
sought to delay me. I wasтАФwhat was the phrase Dad had used at my arming ceremony?тАФтАЬThe Hand of Man
Incarnate,тАЭ that was it, the product of two yearsтАЩ personal combat training and eighteen years of racial hatred. After I
finished the job I could rummage around in crumbling deathtraps for hash pipes and roach clipsтАФmy last detour had
nearly killed me, miles to the north.
 But IтАЩd had to try. I was only two at the time of the Exodus, too young to retain much but a confused impression
of universal terror, of random horror and awful revulsion everywhere. But I remember one incident very clearly. I
remember my brother Israfel, all of eight years old, kneeling down in the middle of 116th Street and methodically
smashing his head against the pavement. Long after IzzyтАЩs eight-year-old brains had splashed the concrete, his little
body continued to slam the shattered skull down again and again in a literally mindless spasm of escape. I saw this
over my motherтАЩs shoulder as she ran, screaming her fear, through the chaotically twisting nightmare that for as long
as she could remember had been only a quietly throbbing nightmare; as she ran through Harlem.
Once when I was twelve I watched a farmer slaughter a chicken, and when the headless carcass got up and ran
about I heard my motherтАЩs scream again. It was coming from my throat. Dad tells me I was unconscious for four
days and woke up screaming.
Even here, even downtown, where the bones sprawled everywhere were those of strangers, I was wound up tight
enough to burst, and ancient reflex fought with modern wisdom as I felt the irrational impulse to lift my head and
cast about for an enemyтАЩs scent. I had failed to recover IzzyтАЩs small bones; Grey Brother, who had always lived in
Harlem, now ruled it, and sharp indeed were his teeth. I had managed to hold off the chittering pack with
incendiaries until I reached the Hudson, and they would not cross the bridge to pursue me. And so I livedтАФat least
until gangrene got me.
And the only thing between me and Fresh Start was Carlson. I saw again in my mindтАЩs eye the familiar Carlson
Poster, the first thing my father ran off when he got access to a mimeograph machine: a remarkably detailed sketch
of thin, academic features surrounded by a mass of graying hair, with the legend, тАЬWANTED: FOR THE MURDER
OF HUMAN CIVILIZATIONтАФWENDELL MORGAN CARLSON. An unlimited lifetime supply of hot-shot shells
will be given to anyone bringing the above head to the Council of Fresh Start.тАЭ
No one ever took Dad up on itтАФat least, no one who survived to collect. And so it looked like it was up to me to
settle the score for a shattered era and a planetful of corpses. The speed was taking hold now; I felt an exalted sense
of destiny and a fever to be about it. I was the duly chosen instrument for mankindтАЩs revenge, and that reckoning was
long overdue.