"Elizabeth Moon. The Speed of Dark " - читать интересную книгу автора

it's too noisy, with too many echoes off the hard surfaces. I can feel
myself tensing up.
Marjory goes first: her purse onto the conveyor belt, her keys in the
little basket. I see her walk through; no one asks her anything. I put my
keys, my wallet, my change into the little basket and walk through. No
buzz, no bleep. The man in uniform stares at me as I pick up my keys, my
wallet, my change and put them back in my pockets. I turn away, toward
Marjory waiting a few yards away. Then he speaks.
"May I see your ticket, please? And some ID?"
I feel cold all over. He hasn't asked anyone else-not the man with the
long braided hair who pushed past me to get his briefcase off the conveyor
belt, not Marjory-and I haven't done anything wrong. You don't have to have
a ticket to go through security for arrivals; you just have to know the
flight number you're meeting. People who are meeting people don't have
tickets because they aren't traveling. Security for departures requires a
ticket.
"I don't have a ticket," I say. Beyond him, I can see Marjory shift
her weight, but she doesn't come closer. I don't think she can hear what he
is saying, and I don't want to yell in a public place.
"ID?" he says. His face is focused on me and starting to get shiny. I
pull out my wallet and open it to my ID. He looks at it, then back at me.
"If you don't have a ticket, what are you doing here?" he asks.
I can feel my heart racing, sweat springing out on my neck. "I'm...
I'm... I'm...
"Spit it out," he says, frowning. "Or do you stutter like that all the
time?"
I nod. I know I can't say anything now, not for a few minutes. I reach
into my shirt pocket and take out the little card I keep there. I offer it
to him; he glances at it.
"Autistic, huh? But you were talking; you answered me a second ago.
Who are you meeting?"
Marjory moves, coming up behind him. "Anything wrong, Lou?"
"Stand back, lady," the man says. He doesn't look at her.
"He's my friend," Marjory says. "We're meeting a friend of mine on
Flight Three-eighty-two, Gate Seventeen. I didn't hear the buzzer go
off..." There is an edge of anger to her tone.
Now the man turns his head just enough to see her. He relaxes a
little. "He's with you?"
"Yes. Was there a problem?"
"No, ma'am. He just looked a little odd. I guess this"-he still has my
card in his hand-"explains it. As long as you're with him..."
"I'm not his keeper," Marjory says, in the same tone that she used
when she said Don was a real heel. "Lou is my friend."
The man's eyebrows go up, then down. He hands me back my card and
turns away. I walk away, beside Marjory, who is headed off in a fast walk
that must be stretching her legs. We say nothing until after we arrive at
the secured waiting area for Gates Fifteen through Thirty. On the other
side of the glass wall, people with tickets, on the departures side, sit in
rows; the seatframes are shiny metal and the seats are dark blue. We don't
have seats in arrivals because we are not supposed to come more than ten