"Aldridge, Ray - Filter FeedersV1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldridge Ray)

"Do you mean: am I a visitor from another planet? A mutant? Some mythic creature, a vampire drinking the blood of unnoticed experience?" Though his language had become extravagant, his voice never changed. "I am an oyster. Or, better, a barnacle. Anchored to my hull, my good Rosemary, I extend myself gingerly into the stream of life, and filter from it my sustenance. And there you have it."

She had a strong impression that he had made this speech many times before, that it was reduced to its essentials, that he was making as clear a statement about himself as he could. "You . . . eat experience? People's memories?"

"No. The truth is more subtle. What I 'eat' is the difference between the richness of my victims' lives and the poor pale perceptions they own. I notice what they did not, and this awareness feeds me."

"'Victims?' Why do you call them victims?"

"Unfortunately, the retrieval of lost memory is a destructive process. My victims remember with me, so at least they regain their lost lives, but eventually, when those lives are mined out, they die. I would like to be a symbiote, but I am a parasite. I only touched the Sailorman. He will be a little dazed for a day or two, his employees will enjoy it while it lasts. When we arrived here, I killed a heron -- thin food, but necessary. My hunger was great, and I dared not take any more from Linda just then."

"Why didn't you go ashore? Surely you could have found all the victims you needed there."

"Unfortunately, I am unable to survive in a crowd. It would be like drowning in soup, for me. A better metaphor: like having a high pressure soup hose forced down my throat. I cannot go ashore, except in deserted places. When the big charter boats pass us, I cannot breathe."

If Thomas was a monster, he was a remarkably forthcoming one. Still . . . she imagined going to the police with her story: yes, the would-be rapist was deterred by a memory vampire. No wonder Thomas could speak so freely.

"How is Linda?" she asked, seeking a diversion, feeling an unreasonable embarrassment that she hadn't thought to ask before.

"She is dying."

Teresa tried to summon a shock she did not really feel. Her shame deepened, as well as her confusion. "But . . . why's she here? Why isn't she in the hospital?"

Thomas shook his beautiful head. "Would you like to see her?"

She followed him to the companion way. From the cabin he said, "I will make a light." An oil lamp flared gold; he reached up a hand to help her. In the lamp's light his eyes seemed without depth, the eyes of an animal.

In the aft cabin, Linda lay on a wide transverse bunk, propped up in a nest of pillows. She was pale, as though her tan had faded overnight. She looked very young. Her eyes were open, staring at the overhead, and at first Teresa thought she was already dead. At her gasp of dismay, Linda's eyes moved slightly.

Thomas slid the compartment door shut, leaving Teresa alone with the white-haired woman.

"Teresa?" Linda's voice was as soft as a breath. "Are you here?"

"Yes." Teresa said, and sat on the edge of the bunk.

"Good. I thought you would come. I told Thomas you would."

Teresa studied the face; it wasn't the face of a sufferer. "Is it true? That he's eaten your life?"

A spectral smile touched the pale lips. "Dramatic. I guessed you were a writer. I could see the signs. No . . . Thomas hasn't devoured me."

"But you're. . . "Teresa wanted to say: You're dying; instead she said, "You're so ill."

"Thomas doesn't always explain well. Listen. He gave me my life, he let me take from it all the joy and sorrow it held. I never noticed, when I was actually living my life."

"Your life isn't over. You're still young."

Linda smiled with slightly more vitality. "Thomas isn't a wasting disease, Teresa. He's very good for the body. I'm fifty-seven years old; I have three grown children and two grandchildren. If you stay with him, you'll look like a young girl, at the end."

Stay with him?