"Ellen Datlow - SciFiction Originals vol.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Datlow Ellen)

is a more desirable outcome as things stand."
Danny sighed with exhaustion. "So we got away with it?"
"We got away with our lives. I'll be doing some fairly heavy trading in the next few months for a new client, and I'd
appreciate it if you'd help me out." She hesitated. "Actually, the client insists."
"Sure. But I'd like to sack out on your sofa first."
"Be my guest." She got up and moved away as he stretched out.
Sleep took him almost immediately. He dreamed about nine-year-old girls again, but this time they all had two
normal arms. His mother was brushing their hair and calling them angels. He tried not to take it personally, but he woke
feeling better than he had in years.


© 2000 by Pat Cadigan & SciFi.com
 James P. Blaylock
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

From their second-story bedroom window in the Berkeley hills, Ed watched strange lights flicker through the treetops a
mile or so above the house, a two-story rental that backed up to the wooded area around Tilden Park. The October
night was unseasonably warm, the window open to catch the land breeze that drifted through the screen, ruffling Ed's
hair. It hadn't been the lights that awakened him, although they cast an eerie, moving glow on the bedroom wall
opposite the window; he had been up and around anyway, disturbed by odd nighttime noises, unable to sleep, his
troubles going around in his head. He and Lisa had argued late last night, and had left the argument unresolved.
Somewhere around four o'clock every small noise had conspired to awaken him: the slowly dripping faucet in the
bathroom, Lisa's rolling over in bed, the early-morning chatter of Lisa's parakeets in their cage downstairs. And then he
had heard a low, unidentifiable humming noise, like bees in an immense hive. He had gotten up and gone downstairs,
draping the parakeet cage before searching for the source of the noise, going out onto the front porch, where it was
quieter, the sound evidently blocked by the house itself. By the time he had gotten back upstairs he was fully awake,
and it was only then that he had noticed the oddly moving lights shining in through the window.
His eyes searched the vast shadow of the eucalyptus grove now, where it merged with the darkness of the pine
forest farther up, mostly piñon pines, all in all a couple of hundred densely-wooded square miles cut with trails and
cleared patches of grass and wildflowers. The fall sky was clear of clouds and fog. There was no telltale sign of smoke,
just thousands of stars and the moon throwing out its cold light-no fire or terrestrial tragedy to account for this
display of light and sound, which made him increasingly uneasy. He watched the lights playing across the hillside,
now and then shooting up into the air like beacons; mostly white light, but with red flashes spaced evenly in a circular
pattern, as if they traced the perimeter of a landing pad or of a vast spherical ship.
He and Lisa had taken this house at the top of the world partly because of its proximity to mother nature, which
was actually something Lisa appreciated more than he did. He had liked the two-bedroom flat off Telegraph Avenue
just fine, where they had lived happily during the first two years of their marriage. But Lisa had wanted something
farther from the scene downtown, especially because they planned to have a child. His stubborn objection to moving
had been met with a resistance that still surprised him when he thought about it. That had been their first real argument
as a married couple, the first time he had seen Lisa lose her temper. To use the word lose was to understate it, though.
There had come a point when her temper had flooded over the top of the dam and he'd had to swim to safety.
He was big enough now to admit that he had contributed his small part to that one, especially since she'd been
right about moving. The Berkeley flat was too small, the plumbing leaked, the heating was lousy. There hadn't really
been room for Ed's stuff, let alone for theirs, although Lisa wasn't a stuff kind of person, not the way he was, which
was their philosophical gulf. His HO trains filled eight big cardboard boxes-not the trains alone, but the papier-mâché
tunnels and mountains and the depot and houses and all - but during the years of their marriage the trains had been
packed away, as had certain other of his collections. Out here at the edge of the wilderness they had an extra room, a
piece of a basement, and forced-air heating. The monthly payment was more than they could afford, and that didn't
generate harmony, but then everything these days cost more than you could afford, so to hell with it, or at least to hell
with it as regards the house and other domestic concerns....