"Charles Stross - Escape" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

looks like. Don't tell me more. You said yourself; your background, your childhood, everything. You
think you can love, and you're probably right, but whoever is first to fall in love with you ..." her
expression softens ... "be gentle with them."

"I will," I promise.

"I mean it," she says. Half-smiling again: "it might be me, if you work at it. And if you give me enough
space to make my own mind up. You can be very overbearing, you know."

"I'm sorry."

"Think nothing of it. Look, I've got to go on watch, check the download status, better go now --"

I stifle a yawn. "Right. Look, I really need to sleep. Something about dropping out of the pod -- think
Boris screwed up the timing, you know? It's dead of night. I'll be okay, but I'm on a different sleep shift
-- ah --" I yawn for real.

"Sure," she says, understandingly. "We've got a lot to talk about. The future, maybe." She moves closer
and embraces me, sleeping bag and all. We kiss, for longer than is sensible. She tastes of hot neutrality,
some kind of amniotic lubricant; androids in love. I'm beginning to wake up again when she says , "I'll be
back soon," breathlessly.

"Wait," I say. She's already pushing off towards the door. I watch her leave through half-shut eyes, until
the door closes on the red dimness of the tunnel. I really do not understand that woman, I decide. I don't
understand my own reaction to her. So hot, so bright, so fast: almost like a reflection. Do I look like that
to other people? A shudder of hot warmth suffuses me. Then I'm asleep.

I awaken to chaos. The hatch is open and a breeze is gusting intermittently, while maintenance drones
mumble quietly in the corners of the cabin. I hear voices undamped by antisound. Someone comes by,
hand over hand, pauses to look curiously in at me: "oh sorry," she says, and is away before I can glare at
her. Shit. There's an arrhythmic banging from up front, as if someone's attacking the walls with a
truncheon. I slide out of my sleeping bag and stretch, straining at grab-bars on opposite walls, then listen
to the voices in my head --

Manifest up to 60%. New arrival: Atman Jarre. Condition: stable, conscious. Attention: support
to transfer bay, support to transfer bay ... The tunnel is narrow, red-lit, metal-walled, like a prehistoric
water ship. I bounce hand-over-hand towards the front end, passing the open control room doors. Boris
is there, arguing about something with Mik. Lorma is strapping herself into a hammock, chattering volubly
about something over a voice-only comm channel: "can't let her do it, we don't have the nitrogen cycle
reserves." I hit the front end module, airlock muzzles opening on all sides, door retracted back into the
hull to keep it internal. I look round. "Yo! Mik --"

It's not Mik but Lorma, the saturnine biosciences chief. She looks unhappy. "Up already?" she asks.

"Yes," I say. "Have you seen Raisa?"

"Huh? I think she's in the receiver bay." She points back down the tunnel. "Hack left at the end,
antispinwise -- you'll see the arrows -- got it?"

Her patronizing tone annoys me. "I know my way around. You busy with the payload?" I gesture at the