"Joan D. Vinge - Psiren" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

burnished brass. But her arms were as thin as sticks, and the bones stood out like a
scream along their length; her face was a shadowed skull.

Her head twisted like a dollтАЩs head until she was looking toward me, at me
alone. The touch of those sunken eyes was a blow. I shut my own eyes, not
knowing what I was seeing, afraid to see it. I kept them shut for a long minute.

It was the lightтАФthe light playing tricks on me. When I looked at her again
there was no ugliness, no suffering in that face. But there was a
strangenessтАФsomething alien about its flat planes, the coloring, about the way her
body fit together. Alien. I leaned forward, trying to meet her eyes. She looked at me,
and they were green, impossibly, translucently green. Our eyes locked; in my mind I
saw her seeing the same eyes, like jewels trapped in the matrix of a face that was too
human, my faceтАж

I read confusion, a silent cry in her look. She twisted her head away again,
searching the crowd as if she needed a hiding place. But infinity was an illusion; the
audience held her captive with its anticipation. I almost thought she shim-mered,
began to disappearтАжcaught herself, in control again. Jule murmured something
across from me, but I didnтАЩt listen.

The Dreamweaver put her hands up to her face, but it was only a gesture, a
sign of beginning. Something like a sigh moved through the crowd . . . something
like a whisper formed in my mind. I shut my eyes again, trying to hear the image
clearly: the soft, fragile-colored dream that echoed palely as a ghost in my mindтАЩs
darkness. I strained toward it, trying to make it clear, to share what made even the
blind, deaf, and empty deadheads all around me gape and dream and squirm in their
seats.

тАЬCat. Cat!тАЭ

I opened my eyes again, blinking; whispered, тАЬDamn it, JuleтАФтАЭ

Her face twisted with pain. тАЬI want to leave. I have to leave.тАЭ

I couldnтАЩt focus on her; the echoes wouldnтАЩt leave my mind alone, calling,
promisingтАФтАЭI can feel her, I can almostтАФтАЭ

Jule put her hands to her head, and tears started in the corner of her eyes. тАЬI
canтАЩt stand it, Cat. Please!тАЭ

Laughter rippled across us and through us: the cloudsitters, lost in another
world, one I wanted to share so much it hurt.

тАЬIt hurts!тАЭ Jule gasped.

тАЬBlock it, then,тАЭ trying to keep my voice down, trying to ignore hers.

And suddenly she was gone. Into the air. тАЬJule!тАЭ The one or two people
nearest me jerked and swore. I stared at the empty seat across from me. SheтАЩd