"Jo Walton - Unreliable Witness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Walton Jo)

Everything in the galaxy, so far, except for humans. It's not good enough. We'd
all like to live longer lives. We've been working on longevity for years, and then
we find you. What makes you want to carry on living? I mean, here you are in
this horrible place with yellow and brown wallpaper, eating tasteless mush, hardly
seeing your family, never seeing your friends. I know it isn't your choice. But
why don't you just give up and die? What makes your heart keep beating? Ours
don't."
I laughed. I couldn't help it. Poor little aliens who can go faster than light and just
curl up and die.


"What's that noise you're making?" he asked. "I always thought it was
interference on TV." I can see why he thought that too, horrible laugh tracks
they have on some programs.


"Just laughing," I said. He looked puzzled.


"Maybe we live to be old because we laugh," I said. "But really we just do. There
isn't any secret. There are plenty of times when if I could have just stopped my
heart and died I would have." When John died. When They changed all my
books. Christmas Day last year when They stole part two of the Robert Jordan
tape Kim had brought me. They never gave it back either.


"I hope the sample helps," he said, shifting a little in a very alien way.


"Why did you pick me?" I asked. "And what if I tell everyone?"


"Nobody will believe you," he said. Then I heard the nurse coming down the
corridor. He looked that way guiltily, and took a step away.


"Not so fast, young man," I said. "You told me you were going to tell me who's
stealing my things."


"You didn't tell me your secret," he said. As if there was any secret. "But
anyway, nobody is. You just think things are being stolen because you can't
keep track of them."


He left then. Tom. He didn't keep his part of the bargain at all, just the same old
lie I get from everyone about it. He just walked out of the door and didn't come
back. I tried to tell people about him, but he was right about that, they didn't
believe me.