"Kathleen Ann Goonan - The Bones of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

dangerous at night, filled with off-duty space-station workers, wild
as any sailors had ever been in the port town of Honolulu.
She thought of the boy with the golden skin, as she had so often in
the hospital. It was none of her business.
What is your business then, Lynn?
She tried to ignore the flashes of dread she felt at the thought of
him, her concern for his almost-certain fate, her certainty that she
knew who he was.
King Kamehameha’s clone. A perfect genetic copy of an
extraordinary man who had been dead for over two hundred years,
even though human cloning was internationally banned.
So what? At least 50 percent of Interspace operations fell under
the banned umbrella, as far as she could tell. Genetic manipulation,
bionan, and the routine disposal of the inevitable unsuccessful
experiments, animal or… human… could occur only within strict
limits.
But those limits were a joke, and a worldwide joke at that. Many
suspected that IS routinely violated the Genetic Conventions, but
few had proof, and those who did were those who benefited most,
through black market sales of genetic or bionan packages. The vast,
enormous underclass of the world wanted perfect vision, wanted to
be disease-free, wanted intelligence—however it was defined.
Resentment against the scientific intelligentsia who had decided, in
2009, to formally withhold all such changes from humankind until
more was known was strong, very strong. The world was divided
more and more sharply into a tiny core of wealth—those who could
afford, for instance, Happy Child modifications with the huge
black-market surcharge—and a vast and primitive third world that
had changed very little in the past hundred years economically or
educationally.
Lynn touched off her handy. She felt as if the universe had taken
something away, but in place of the lost child had given her the
responsibility for something greater. A crazy thought, she told
herself, jamming her fists into her pockets. You are hardly chosen
one material.
But the fact was that this kid might be in trouble.
 She turned abruptly and walked through the old house down the
creaking hallway, grabbing a smooth silk sweater and pulling it on
as she walked. She stepped out into the cool night, allowed herself a
glimpse of the star-spattered sky. She turned left, away from
Honolulu.
She crossed the street. It was late. In the silence, palm fronds
clicked. Mimosas were black silhouettes against the stars, as were
the condos that loomed two blocks ahead.
The Koolau House, at the top of the hill, was old, but superbly
designed and maintained; the seventy-year-old garden enclaves of
the fifty-story condo were mature, tropical jungles.
Lynn glanced at the retscan panel and the door buzzed open. She
saw the back of David, the night guard, as he sat in his little office
looking at screens. She raised her hand in greeting and without