"Sheri S. Tepper - The Fresco" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tepper Sherri)

She left the trees behind and stepped out onto one of the parallel tracks in the grass that passed for a
road, looked up at the sky once more, lowered her eyes and was confronted by the aliens.
Thinking it over later, she blamed the TV and movies for her immediate reaction. The media gobbled
everything that happened or could happen, then spit it out, over and over, every idea regurgitated, every
concept so mushed up that when anything remarkable actually occurred it was already a cliche. Like
cloning or surrogate mothers or extraterrestrials and UFOs. The whole world had heard about it and seen
movies about it, and had become bored with the subject before it even happened!
So, when the aliens walked out of the trees across the rutted road and asked her what her personal
label was, her first thought was that she'd stepped into the middle of TV movie set. She looked around for
cameras. Then she thought, no, she'd seen ET arrivals done better, far more believably, and certainly with
better actors playing the abductee than herself, so it was a joke. A moment's consideration of the creatures
before her, however, told her they couldn't be humans in costume. Entirely the wrong shape and the
wrong size.
Her final reaction was that she'd wanted to get away from home, sure, but an alien abduction was
ridiculous.
The lead alien, the slightly taller one, cocked its head and repeated in the same dry, uninflected tone it
had used the first time, "Please, what is your identity description?" Then, as though recognizing her
uncertainty, "My designation is mrfleblobr'r'cxzuckand, an athyco, of the Pistach people.тАЭ
Benita had to clear her throat before she could speak. "I'm sorry, but I can't possibly pronounce your
name. I am Benita, that is Benita Alvarez Shipton of the . . . Hispanic people.тАЭ
A rather lengthy silence while the alien who had spoken turned to the other alien and the two of them
focused their attention on a mechanism the first one was holding in one of its pincers. Claws? No, pincers.
Very neat, small, rather like a jeweler's tools, capable of deft manipulation.
The first alien turned to ask, "Are we mistaken in thinking this is America area? We are now in
Hispanic area?"
She fought down an urge to giggle and almost choked instead. "This is the southwest part of North
America, yes, but there are many Hispanic people in this area as well as Caucasian people and Indian
people. This country also has Afro-American people, ah, Hawaiian people, Chinese people . . .тАЭ She
caught herself babbling, and her voice trailed off as the two went back into their huddle. Could two
huddle? She sucked in her cheeks and bit down hard, trying to convince herself she was awake. Half
hidden in a grove of firs beyond the two aliens a gleaming shape hovered about two feet above the
ground. The alien ship: a triangular gunmetal blue thing, flat on the bottom, rounded like a teardrop
above. It looked barely big enough to hold the two beings, who were about her height, five foot six,
though much lighter in build, each with four yellow arms and four green legs, and what seemed to be a
scarlet exoskeleton covering the thorax and extending in a kind of kangaroo tail in back, like a prop. Or
maybe wing covers, like a beetle. So, maybe they were bugs. Giant bugs. And maybe they weren't. The
exoskeleton could be armor of some kind, and they had huge, really huge multifaceted eyes, plus several
smaller ones that looked almost human. The mouths didn't look like insect mouths, though there were
small squidgy bits around the sides. She couldn't see any teeth. Just horny ridges. They couldn't make
words with inflexible mouths like that, so evidently they talked through the little boxes they had hanging
around their . . . middles.
"Are you receptor person?" the taller one asked. "That is, provider of sequential life with or without
DNA introduced by another individual or individuals?"
She thought about this, sorting it out, flushing a little as she thought, Oh, Lord, are they going to ask
me about sex? She swallowed. "I'm a woman, female, yes, and I have two children.тАЭ With DNA
introduced by another individual. Which explained a lot, if one was looking for explanations.
"Are you recently injured?" the other, slightly shorter alien asked, reaching out with a pincer foot to
stroke the swollen purple skin around her left eye.
It felt rather like being touched with a pencil eraser: not hard, but not soft, either. Possibly very
sensitive, she supposed, and the gesture was delicately nonintrusive. "A small accident," she murmured,