"Kate Wilhelm - Scream" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

"Sax, we have until the end of the week, and then back to Washington for you, back to New York for
me. When do you think you'll ever get out of the city again?"

"If I get back to it, what makes you think I'll ever want out again?"

"You will. This trip will haunt you. You'll begin to think of those parakeets, the terns wheeling and diving
for fish. You'll dream of swimming in clean water. You'll dream of the trees and the skies and the waves
on the beach. And no matter how much you want to get it back, there won't be any way at all."

"There's a way if you want it bad enough."

"No way." He shook his head. "I tried. For years I tried. No way. Unless you're willing to walk
cross-country, and take the risks. No one ever makes it to anywhere, you know."

I knew he was right. In Health and Education you learn about things like public transportation: there isn't
any. You learn about travel: there isn't any, not that's safe. The people who know how to salvage and
make-do get more and more desperate for parts to use, more and more deadly in the ways they get
those parts. Also, travel permits were about as plentiful as unicorns.

"You wanted to go back to Mexico?" I asked.

"Yeah. For twenty years I wanted to go back. The women there are different."

"You were younger. They were younger."

"No, it isn't just that. They were different. Something in the air. You could feel it, sniff it, almost see it.
The smells were..." He stood up suddenly. "Anyway, I tried to get back, and this is as close as I could
get. Maybe I'll go ahead and walk after all." He faced the west where the sky had cleared and the low
sun looked three times as big as it should have.

"Look, Bernard, I could quote you statistics; that's my job, you know. But I won't. Just take my word for
it. That's what I'm good at. What I read, I remember. The birth rate has dropped to two per thousand
there. As of six years ago. It might be lower now. They're having a hell of a time with communications.
And they had plague."

"I don't believe that."

"What? The birth rate?"
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"Plague." He looked at me with a strange smile.

I didn't know what he was driving at. I was the one with access to government records, while he was just
a photographer. "Right," I said. "People just died of nothing."

"It's a lie, Sax! A goddamn fucking lie! No plague!" He stopped as suddenly as he had started, and sat
down. "Forget it, Sax. Just forget it."