"Michael Swanwick - Radiant Doors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

it, it was an accident! It could have happened to anyone."

I fled from LaShana's alarmed, concerned face.

Not twenty minutes later, Gevorkian came sleazing into my office. She smiled,
and leaned lazily back against the file cabinet when I said hi. Arms folded. Eyes
sad and cynical. That big plain face of hers, tolerant and worldly-wise. Wearing
her skirt just a smidge tighter, a touch shorter than was strictly correct for an
office environment.

"Virginia," she said.

"Linda."

We did the waiting thing. Eventually, because I'd been here so long I honestly
didn't give a shit, Gevorkian spoke first. "I hear you've been experiencing a little
disgruntlement."

"Eh?"

"Mind if I check your purse?"

Without taking her eyes off me for an instant, she hoisted my purse, slid a hand
inside, and stirred up the contents. She did it so slowly and dreamily that, I swear
to God, I half expected her to smell her fingers afterward. Then, when she didn't
find the expected gun, she said, "You're not planning on going postal on us, are
you?"

I snorted.

"So what is it?"

"What is it?" I said in disbelief. I went to the window. Zip zip zip, down came a
rectangle of cloth. Through the scrim of mosquito netting the camp revealed
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Michael%20Swanwick%20-%20Radiant%20Doors.htm (6 of 21) [12/30/2004 8:07:58 PM]
 Radiant Doors by Michael Swanwick This story first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 1998


itself: canvas as far as the eye could see. There was nothing down there as fancy
as our labyrinthine government office complex at the top of the hillтАУwhat we
laughingly called the TentagonтАУwith its canvas air-conditioning ducts and
modular laboratories and cafeterias. They were all army surplus, and what wasn't
army surplus was Boy Scout hand-me-downs. "Take a look. Take a goddamn
fucking look. That's the future out there, and it's barreling down on you at the rate
of sixty seconds per minute. You can see it and still ask me that question?"

She came and stood beside me. Off in the distance, a baby began to wail. The
sound went on and on. "Virginia," she said quietly. "Ginny, I understand how you
feel. Believe me, I do. Maybe the universe is deterministic. Maybe there's no way
we can change what's coming. But that's not proven yet. And until it is, we've got