"Michael Swanwick - The Sleep of Reason" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

side. Annaprudenzia knew how to sew. She got out the wedding gown she had never found need for,
and cut it down to fit their new ward's exquisite shape. Finally, all was ready.

All was ready, save one thing тАФ a heart! What sort of heart must she have? A woman's heart would
never do. It was too kind and rational for what they had in mind. The three learned ladies consulted long
and hard. Finally, they gave her the heart of a fox.

"Suppose you met a man, a perfect man, one in a million, the only man for you. Suppose you had it in
your power to destroy him. Would you let him live?"

"Of course not!" she said. Then, "But, well тАж I can imagine a certain sort of man, one with stiff red hair
and a cynical smile. A liar, a thief, and a rogue, and yet faithful to me to the death. Him I might permit to
let live a year or three. Just in order to prolong his torment, you understand."

"Too merciful by half!" the three scientists cried. They took out the fox's heart, and put in the heart of a
wolf.

Then they asked the question again.

"Preposterous!" she snorted. "Still тАж supposing I were to meet a savage brute of a man, with sleek black
hair and a murderous look in his eyes. Him I might take decades to kill."

"Not cruel enough, not cruel enough!" the old women wailed.

They gave her the heart of a man.

"Who cares?" Elena said when they asked her the question a third time. "There's plenty of fish in the sea.
I could find as many like him as I wanted."

So, joyfully, the three mad scientists introduced their creation to the world.

A man, having decided to destroy everything, would have created something that would do the job all at
once. They, being women, were more patient. Their weapon would destroy the world one man at a time.



3. [Plate 59]
The Sentinel

The monolith was discovered not on the Moon, as one might have expected, but in a gravel pit not far
from Paris. A steam shovel broke three teeth upon its upper edge. A supervisor ordered the gravel
cleared away from it, so he could see what the problem was. Then the French government took over.

It was rectangular, the monolith, and blacker than obsidian. Tougher than obsidian as well тАФ diamonds
would not scratch it and bullets bounced off its smooth surface without leaving a scar. It was obviously
manufactured, and yet no human being could have created such a thing. Scientists speculated that it was
made of collapsed matter. An extrasolar origin was postulated.

In this, the scientists were right. An ancient and benevolent race had passed through the Solar System
back when our world was half its present age, left this token of their passage, and then gone on their