"02 - Hot Sleep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

The answers had just been sitting there, like a
disc ready to be played, a book ready to be read,
waiting for him behind Tork's eyes. Jas looked up
and saw his mother watching him. He looked at
her tightly-set lips, glanced at her wrinkled
forehead, and saw (just behind the eyes) that she
would suffer any torture if it would bring Homer
Worthing back to her for one bright day, for one
penetrating touch, for one last kind, delicate,
ravishing night.

"I wish I looked more like him, mother," Jas
said, wanting the wrinkles on the forehead to go
away.

She just narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't," she
whispered, and then pushed a plate of the stiff gel
that was called soup in the catalog across the table
toward him. Jas sat for a moment, then leaned
across the table, took his mother by the shoulders,
and pulled her close. His mouth by her ear, he
spoke so softly that he could barely hear his own
voice, and said, "It's true."

She tried to pull away, shaking her head.

"Mother," Jas insisted, pulling her closer still,

"I'm a Swipe. I got the answers from the teacher's
mind."

She shuddered. "Impossible," she said softly.

"I know."

She got up from the table and took him by the
hand. Together they left the flat and walked down
corridors and ramps to the tube. At that hour it
wasn't crowded. She dragged him along until
they got to a women's lavatory. She started to pull
him in.

"I can't go in there," Jas whispered.

"You're sure as hell going to," she hissed back,
her face ugly with fear.

He went in. It was empty. His mother leaned
against the door, facing him.