"Peter Watts - Blindsight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watts Peter)

hadn't actually told them.
"Son," Jim said quietly. "Maybe you could give us a moment."
I would have given them a fucking lifetime. I unplugged myself
back to the ward, looked from the corpse on the bed to my blind
and catatonic father in his couch, murmuring sweet nothings into
the datastream. Let them perform for each other. Let them
formalize and finalize their so-called relationship in whatever way
they saw fit. Maybe, just once, they could even bring themselves
to be honest, there in that other world where everything else was a
lie. Maybe.
I felt no desire to bear witness either way.
But of course I had to go back in for my own formalities. I
adopted my role in the familial set-piece one last time, partook of
the usual lies. We all agreed that this wasn't going to change
anything, and nobody deviated enough from the script to call
anyone else a liar on that account. And finallyтАФcareful to say
until next time rather than goodbyeтАФwe took our leave of my
mother.
Peter Watts 24 Blindsight

I even suppressed my gag reflex long enough to give her a hug.

*

Jim had his inhaler in hand as we emerged from the darkness. I
hoped, without much hope, that he'd throw it into the garbage
receptacle as we passed through the lobby. But he raised it to his
mouth and took another hit of vassopressin, that he would never be
tempted.
Fidelity in an aerosol. "You don't need that any more," I said.
"Probably not," he agreed.
"It won't work anyway. You can't imprint on someone who isn't
even there, no matter how many hormones you snort. It justтАФ"
Jim said nothing. We passed beneath the muzzles of sentries
panning for infiltrating Realists.
"She's gone," I blurted. "She doesn't care if you find someone
else. She'd be happy if you did." It would let her pretend the
books had been balanced.
"She's my wife," he told me.
"That doesn't mean what it used to. It never did."
He smiled a bit at that. "It's my life, son. I'm comfortable with
it."
"DadтАФ"
"I don't blame her," he said. "And neither should you."
Easy for him to say. Easy even to accept the hurt she'd inflicted
on him all these years. This cheerful fa├зade here at the end hardly
made up for the endless bitter complaints my father had endured
throughout living memory. Do you think it's easy when you
disappear for months on end? Do you think it's easy always
wondering who you're with and what you're doing and if you're