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

children of Swipes sometimes react this way, pre-
tending to be Swipes because of guilt feelings
about the way their parent died. But whether it's
real or not, it can get you killed if you go around
claiming to be a—"

"I don't feel guilty about my father's death!" Jas
said angrily. "I wasn't even born when he died. I
wasn't even conceived. If you didn't want a crazy
child, why did you go to the sperm bank—"

"I wanted him to have a son—"

"Well, he's got one! But don't try to transfer
your psychoses onto me!"

She fell silent, her jaw slack. And as Jas leaned
against the washbasin he again had a flash; but
this time not a thought, this time a picture:

A man smiling—not a handsome man, but a
man used to power, a man sure of himself, a man
with huge, powerful, sweet hands that reached
out and touched—

"No!" his mother shouted at him, and she
pushed his hand away, and he realized that he
had touched her just as she was remembering his
father's touch, that he had been acting out her
memory.

"Don't touch me!" she said. "Not like that."

"I'm sorry. I just—I couldn't help it—mother,
why do you remember him laughing, when he—''

His mother shook her head violently. "You
didn't see," she hissed, more to herself than to
him. "You didn't know, you didn't see." She was
not looking at him. Is she even sane, Jas wondered
for a moment. And then realized that the answer
to his question was no, had always been no.

Suddenly his mother relaxed and smiled. "Of
course," she said. "You're just insightful. It's a
family trait. Your grandfather was just like that.
As if he could see into your soul." She laughed.
"Little Jason Worthing, just like your father's
father."