"Richard Wilson - Mother to the World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Richard)

MOTHER TO THE WORLD

Richard Wilson

His name was Martin Rolfe. She called him Mr. Ralph.
She was Cecelia Beamer, called Siss.
He was a vigorous, intelligent, lean and wiry forty-two, a
shade under six feet tall. His hair, black, was thinning but
still covered all of his head; and all his teeth were his own.
His health was excellent. He'd never had a cavity Or an opera-
tion and he fervently hoped he never would.
She was a slender, strong young woman of twenty-eight,
five feet four. Her eyes, nose and mouth were regular and
well-spaced but the combination fell short of beauty. She
wore her hair, which was dark blonde, not quite brown,
straight back and long in two pigtails which she braided
daily, after a ritualistic hundred brushings. Her figure was
better than average for her age and therefore good, but she
did nothing to emphasize it. Her disposition was cheerful
when she was with someone; when alone her tendency was
to work hard at the job at hand, giving it her serious atten-
tion. Whatever she was doing was the most important thing
in the world to her just then and she had a compulsion to do
it absolutely right. She was indefatigable but she liked, almost
demanded, to be praised for what she did well.
Her amusements were simple ones. She liked to talk to
people but most people quickly became bored with what she
had to say she was inclined to be repetitive. Fortunately for
her, she also liked to talk to animals, birds included.
She was a retarded person with the mentality of an eight-
year-old.
Eight can be a delightful age. Rolfe remembered his son at
eight bright, inquiring, beginning to emerge from childhood
but not so fast as to lose any of his innocent charm; a refresh-
ing, uninhibited conversationalist with an original viewpoint
on life. The boy had been a challenge to him and a constant
delight. He held on to that memory, drawing sustenance from
it, for her.
Young Rolfe was dead now, along with his mother and
three billion other people.
Rolfe and Siss were the only ones left in all the world.
It was M.R. that had done it, he told her. Massive Retalia-
tion; from the Other Side.
When American bombs rained down from long-range jets
and rocket carriers, nobody'd known the Chinese had what
they had. Nobody'd suspected it of that relatively backward
country which the United States had believed it was soften-
ing up, in a brushfire war, for enforced diplomacy.
Rolfe hadn't been aware of any speculation that Peking's
scientists were concentrating their research not on weapons