"James Tiptree Jr. - Beam Us Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

"They were coming back for me. It was secret. All I had to do was sort of fit in and observe. Like a
report. One day they would come back and haul me up in that beam thing; maybe you know about that?
And there I'd be back in real time where human beings were, where they were human. I wasn't really
stuck here in the past. On a backward planet."

The paramed nodded.

"Oh, I mean, I didn't really believe it; I knew it was just a show. But I did believe it too. It was like
there, in the background, underneath, no matter what was going on. They were coming for me. All I had
to do was observe. And not to interfere. You know? Prime directive тАж Of course, after I grew up, I
realized they weren't; I mean, I realized consciously. So I was going to go to them. Somehow,
somewhere. Out there тАж Now I know. It really isn't so. None of it. Never. There's nothing тАж Now I
know I'll die here."

"Oh, now," said the paramed. He got up and started to take things away. His fingers were shaky.

"It's clean there," said Hobie in a petulant voice. "None of this shit. Clean and friendly. They don't torture
people," he explained, thrashing his head. "They don't killтАФ" He slept. The paramed went away.

Somebody started to yell monotonously.

Hobie opened his eyes. He was burning up.

The yelling went on, became screaming. It was dusk. Footsteps went by, headed for the screaming.
Hobie saw they had put him in a bed by the door.

Without his doing much about it, the screaming seemed to be lifting him out of the bed, propelling him
through the door. Air. He kept getting close-ups of his hands clutching things. Bushes, shadows.
Something scratched him.

After a while the screaming was a long way behind him. Maybe it was only in his ears. He shook his
head, felt himself go down onto boards. He thought he was in the cemetery.

"No," he said. "Please. Please no." He got himself up, balanced, blundered on, seeking coolness.

The side of the plane felt cool. He plastered his hot body against it, patting it affectionately. It seemed to
be quite dark now. Why was he inside with no lights? He tried the panel; the lights worked perfectly.
Vaguely he noticed some yelling starting outside again. It ignited the screaming in his head. The screaming
got very loudтАФloudтАФLOUDтАФand appeared to be moving him, which was good.

He came to above the overcast and climbing. The oxy-support tube was hitting him in the nose. He
grabbed for the mask, but it wasn't there. Automatically, he had leveled off. Now he rolled and looked
around.

Below him was a great lilac sea of cloud, with two mountains sticking through it, their western tips on fire.
As he looked, they dimmed. He shivered, found he was wearing only sodden shorts. How had he got
here? Somebody had screamed intolerably and he had run.
He flew along calmly, checking his board. No trouble except the fuel. Nobody serviced the AX92's any
more. Without thinking about it, he began to climb again. His hands were a yard away and he was