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

"And my father."

"No!" she said fiercely. "He was a Swipe. But
your grandfather. He just looked at me the first
time Homer brought me home, just looked at my
eyes and then he smiled and he said to me, 'Nita,
you're a good woman, you're right for my son.'

And from then on it was like he'd known me all
my life. He knew he could trust me. And he could,
he could."

Somebody pushed on the door, trying to get in.

"We've got to leave, mother," Jas said.

"Not until you promise me," she said.

"What."

"That you'll never say that again. To anyone.
About being a—"

"I promise. Do you think I want to get killed?"
Jas lunged for the doorknob. His mother backed
away, and the door slid open as Jason twisted the
knob.

A woman with a little girl who was dancing up
and down shot them a dirty look as they came out.
Then she did a double take when she realized that
Jas was a boy.

"Perverts!" the woman spat as they hurried
through the cars to the exit.

The next day at school they tried to trap him.
Tork wasn't in the test room. Jas went in for his
regular weekend quiz, and an empty-headed
woman with thoroughly observable decolletage
greeted him in a whispery voice and told him his
test was ready. Jas guessed what they were going
to do. To make sure, he looked into her head.
Behind her eyes? A love life. No answers to tests.

And sure enough, the test was not on the topol-
ogy of speed-of-light motion, the study topic for
the week. It was, once again, astrodynamics. All
new questions, of course. But the same topic.