"Michael Swanwick - Mother Grasshopper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

"Resistance is useless," Victoria read. "For mine is the might and power of the
Cosmos Itself!" She'd found a comic book stuck back under the seat and gone
through it three times, chuckling to herself, while the truck rattled down that
near-nonexistent road. Now she put it down. "Tell me something," she said. "How
do you know your magician came by this way?"

"I just know is all," I said curtly. I'd given myself a shot of B-complex
vitamins, but my head and gut still felt pretty ragged. Nor was it particularly
soothing having to drive this idiot truck one-armed. And, anyway, I couldn't say
just how I knew. It was a feeling I had, a certainty.

"I had a dream last night. After we, ummmm, danced."

I didn't look at her.

"I was on a flat platform, like a railroad station, only enormous. It stretched
halfway to infinity. There were stars all around me, thicker and more colorful
than I'd ever imagined them. Bright enough to make your eyes ache. Enormous
machines were everywhere, golden, spaceships I suppose. They were taking off and
landing with delicate little puffs of air, like it was the easiest thing
imaginable to do. My body was so light I felt like I was going to float up among
them. You ever hear of a place like that?"

"No."

"There was a man waiting for me there. He had the saddest smile, but cold, cruel
eyes. Hello, Victoria, he said, and How did you know my name, I asked. Oh, I
keep a close eye on Daniel, he said, I'm grooming him for an important job. Then
he showed me a syringe. Do you know what's in here? he asked me. The liquid in
it was so blue it shone." She fell silent.

"What did you say?"

"I just shook my head. Mortality, he said. It's an improved version of the drug
you shot yourself up with fifty years ago. Tell Daniel it'll be waiting for him
at Sky Terminus, where the great ships come and go. That was all. You think it
means anything?"

I shook my head.

She picked up the comic book, flipped it open again. "Well, anyway, it was a
strange dream."
That night, after doing the dishes, I went and sat down on the pickup's
sideboard and stared into the fire, thinking. Victoria came and sat down beside
me. She put a hand on my leg. It was the lightest of touches, but it sent all my
blood rushing to my cock.

She smiled at that and looked up into my eyes. "Resistance is useless," she
said.