"Peter Watts - A Niche" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

I know your kind, Ballard, you've never failed at anything...
"You don't have to feel ashamed about it," Ballard reassures
her.
"I don't," Clarke says, honestly. She doesn't feel much of
anything any more. Just the tingling. And the tension. And a
vague sort of wonder that she's even alive.

The bulkhead is sweating.
The deep sea lays icy hands on the metal and, inside, Clarke
watches the humid atmosphere bead and run down the wall. She
sits rigid on her bunk under dim fluorescent light, every wall of the
cubby within easy reach. The ceiling is too low. The room is too
narrow. She feels the ocean compressing the station around her.
And all I can do is wait...
The anabolic salve on her injuries is warm and soothing.
Clarke probes the purple flesh of her arm with practiced fingers.
The diagnostic tools in the Med cubby have vindicated her. She's
lucky, this time; bones intact, epidermis unbroken. She seals up
her 'skin, hiding the damage.
8 Peter Watts

She shifts on the pallet, turns to face the inside wall. Her
reflection stares back at her through eyes like frosted glass. She
watches the image, admires its perfect mimicry of each movement.
Flesh and phantom move together, bodies masked, faces neutral.
That's me, she thinks. That's what I look like now. She tries to
read what lies behind that glacial facade. Am I bored, horny,
upset? How to tell, with her eyes hidden behind those corneal
opacities? She sees no trace of the tension she always feels. I
could be terrified. I could be pissing in my 'skin and no one would
know.
She leans forward. The reflection comes to meet her. They
stare at each other, white to white, ice to ice. For a moment, they
almost forget Beebe's ongoing war against pressure. For a
moment, they don't mind the claustrophobic solitude that grips
them.
How many times, Clarke wonders, have I wanted eyes as dead
as these?

Beebe's metal viscera crowd the corridor beyond her cubby.
Clarke can barely stand erect. A few steps bring her into the
lounge.
Ballard, back in shirtsleeves, is at one of the library terminals.
"Rickets," she says.
"What?"
"Fish down here don't get enough trace elements. They're
rotten with deficiency diseases. Doesn't matter how fierce they are.
They bite too hard, they break their teeth on us."
Clarke stabs buttons on the food processor; the machine
grumbles at her touch. "I thought there was all sorts of food at the