"Sheri S. Tepper - After Long Silence" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

"What else did he want?"

"To give us tickets to the show, of course. To have dinner with us after."
"Did he ask about Mother?" It was the wrong thing to have asked. Her mood changed abruptly.

"Yes. He asked if she and your father were still living at the same place, and I told him your father died,
but she was still there. It's funny he wouldn't know that, Tassy, about your father. I imagine he'll call her,
too."

Tasmin doubted it very much. When Lim had left Deepsoil Five, he had gone without a word. It wasn't
until almost four years later that they had found out he was alive and well on the Deepsoil Coast, doing
nightclub concerts of trip songs, moving young women to passionate abandon, making money with both
hands. After Tasmin's father died, his mother could have used some of that money, but Lim had never
offered, not even after Tasmin wrote тАж

Funny. In the letter, he had told Lim that Mother was in need, but he had not said his father was dead.
He had supposed Lim knew. And yet, how would he have known?

"What else did you tell him?"

"Oh, just that we wanted tickets. I said lots and lots, so we could bring all our friends тАж "

Your friends, he thought. Your boyfriends and their wives. Celcy had lots of boyfriends, most of them
married. Just friends, nothing to get jealous or upset over. Just boyfriends. No girlfriends, though. All
women were rivals, no matter how young or old. Poor Celcy. Dear Celcy.

"You said dinner?"

"After the show, he said. He wants to talk to you."

Jaconi caught him at lunch, very full of his newest theory. "I'm convinced I've found a repetitive
sequence, Tas! A similarity that crops up in over ten percent of all successful Petitions and Justifications."

"Don't be pedantic, Jacky. Call them PJs like everyone else does."

The older man flushed, ran his fingers through his gray beard as though he were combing mice out of it.
"Habit. Trying to stay dignified in front of the students. Hell, you were my student."

"I remember. And you were a good teacher, too. You should have stayed with it instead of taking the
library job."

"Well, it gives me time toтАФyou know. I know you call it my hobbyhorse, Tas, but it isn't just that.
Really. Some days I think I'm that close." He held up a pinched thumb and finger, almost meeting. "That
close. I know we're actually talking to the things! It almost seems I can understand what the words are
тАж"

"Until someone comes along with a new PJ?"

"No, that's been the trouble up until now. I've been assuming all the тАж PJs should have a common
element, right? But what if Erick-son was right? What if it is really language." Jaconi's voice dropped to a