"Ian Watson - Caucus Winter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

domestically, so they wouldn't have tipped off the Secret Service. Maybe the FBI
knew about the geek's connections but never put two and two together...

I managed to shower, though this failed to restore me properly to life.
Yesterday morning, I had been able to watch CNN on the TV in my hotel room. Now
there were only Finnish and Swedish channels. On one of these a solemn
discussion was in progress between two Swedes. A map of America appeared.
Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and the Dakotas were highlighted in yellow. Those
adjacent states formed an irregular box about seventeen hundred kilometers wide
by a thousand deep on the accompanying scale. Huge! I felt so sick and scared.
So far from home, a substantial portion of which was no longer home.

A passage beside the hotel restaurant led to a sizable glossy indoor shopping
center of glass domes and escalators. Shops were already opening up. I passed a
newsagent's.

Did the banner headline in the morning edition of Aamulehti refer to America's
calamity? Probably the paper went to press before the news broke. Finnish is a
language all of its own. None of the multi-vowel words seemed decodable. Maybe
the name of that newspaper was a hint that I should try an omelet for breakfast.

I spotted a small shop with a green cross outside, so I pulled my pocket
dictionary from my purse.

The word for hangover turned out to be krapula. This seemed appropriate. I felt
like crap. I wouldn't easily forget such a word. Excuse me, I have a bad
krapula.

"Krapula," I told the white-coated woman in the shop. I smiled appeasingly in
case she thought I was insulting her.

She looked blank.

"I have a hangover," I said in English.

"Oh, you have a hangover. You need some aspirin."

Aspirin never did much for me. "I'd hoped for something stronger."

"For strong drugs you need a prescription. There are strict laws."

Stuff was on the shelves but she would not sell it to me.

Was the world already turning against the last remaining superpower, now on the
verge of tearing apart just as the Ukraine and other republics had torn loose
from once-mighty Russia?

"Good pronunciation," she commented as I was leaving, empty-handed.

No need for paranoia. I had got the word right after all. I just had not put