"Grant, Charles L - Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

"I don't know. It feels good, and it feels . . . funny." I scratched at my head, my throat, moved rapidly away from the edge of the sidewalk when a hovercat aired by, its skirts keeping down the blow of brown dust from its fans. "Things ought to be banned," I muttered as I brushed at my trousers.
"Progress," she said. "But what do you mean, 'funny'? You've acted before. What's . . . I don't know what's funny about it?"
When we reached the vehicle still parked in front of the eatshop, I hadn't yet found an answer. I thought about it, thought about what I had learned from the lunar production, and from Philip and Vivian, trying right there in the middle of that town to squeeze in, one way or another, the last piece.
To put together, as Helena said much later, years later, the last fragile piece of a broken unicorn.
And when I did I hustled her into her seat, slid quickly behind the wheel, and drove off much faster than I thought I was going. A few heads turned, a few faces frowned as we sped through Eisentor and back into the hills, and as soon as I realized it I eased the acceleration. The one thing I didn't need now was to have our faces remembered.
"All right," I said as I turned onto another side road, "I have to find a place where I can do some thinking."
"Isn't there anything else you do but think?"

Her bitterness amazed me, so much so that I almost stopped right there.
"I mean, Gordy, aren't you getting tired? Didn't those people . . . didn't they do anything for you?"
I made excuses for her. She was overtired-we'd hardly gotten the best of rest, sleeping in the car or on the ground beside it. She was still overwrought from our flight. She had not yet been able to accept the status she had willingly, knowingly, adopted when she came with me.
I made excuses, but for the next two hours or so we argued. About little things, dumb things, sniping and picking until it was apparent one of us was going to leap from the car if we didn't calm down.
By nightfall, I knew she was ready to give up. Maybe she had thought I had a meticulous plan already worked out; maybe she thought there was still some vestige of romance in weariness and hunger, dirt and thirst. Whatever it was, it angered me, and I was just about ready to turn around from wherever we were and take her back to Philayork when I realized that if I did, if I gave her up without some sort of trying, I would be no better than Philip and his incredible paunch.
I slowed and began to talk, ignoring her gibes as best I could, noticing after a while that they grew fewer and less acid. I talked, roughing out the idea I had had when prompted by the children. Her skepticism fed on it for nearly an hour, but I refused to give it up. And when I was done, with all her objections buried in the darkness around us, she was silent.
Shortly afterward, we came upon a solitary abandoned house, one of many that belonged to those who, having no direct contact with any of the smaller towns, decided that perhaps the plexes weren't so bad after all. Those we had come across before had been done in by the weather or vandals or a brutal combination of both, but this one had recently been vacated, and it didn't take me long to force my way in. There were scant provisions left in the ovenwall, but they were enough to fill us. The comunit still worked and, while I made some effort to hide the car, Helena watched the news for some sign of our escapade, and much later, years later, we both admitted that our egos were blunted sorely when nothing was broadcast. We were minor criminals then, it seemed, not worth the airtime.
We slept in the tiny bedroom. Apart. Alone.
I began to have doubts.
"We'll have to stay here for a few days," I said the next morning. "Just to be sure. I want to be completely sure before we go on."
"It happened too fast, Gordy," she said. We were sitting opposite each other in the living room. Her eyes were swollen and red, . her hair in uncaring disarray. "Everything was moving just nicely, slowly. I guess that's what I mean. Then you showed .up, and all of a sudden I couldn't blink without something happening. You know, we didn't even have time to say-"
"We had no one to say it to, really, you know."
"There was Vivian, I suppose. I guess we said good-bye to her. In a way."
"But she fired you!"
"She was still someone I knew."
"Well, for all that, so am L"
"Yes, but you're here."

"You really think we can get away with it, don't you?"
"Why not? We won't have some thirty-room loft overlooking the ocean, but we'll manage. It all depends on your priorities."
"We'll have to change, then, won't we?"
"I'm afraid so. Not radically, mind you, but enough to confuse anyone we might happen to meet that knew us."
"Now what are the odds of that, Mr. Anderson?"
"Fantastically small."
"Do you have any idea how many years it took for this hair to get this long? You're asking an awful lot of me."
"That, too, depends on your priorities."
"If you're not careful, Gordon Anderson, you're going to get as pompous as Philip. Hand me that knife."

"The food's running out. They must have disconnected the supply when they moved. Must have? Of course they did. I must be getting stir crazy or something. It's all that practicing you're making me do."
"Well, if the food's running out, then we might as well start planning to make our first move. You know, Philip said he was starving. I wish he'd walk through that door right now. I'd tie him permanently to a chair and face him to the ovenwall. Then I'd smash the thing and let him watch the food rot while he shriveled."

"You're vicious."
"I have a sense of the dramatic."

"Do you like the color of my hair? Black sets off my skin rather nicely, don't you think?"
"Do you like my beard? Vivian kept telling me I had an agreeably weak chin."

"Helena!" ..
"What's the matter, don't you like it?"
"Where . . . where did you get it?"
"There's a storage room upstairs. I was looking for some clothes, those over there, and I found this little chest. I think there must have been children here sometime. A long time ago. Anyway, I opened it, and there were all these baubles and things. This one was at the bottom."
"I can't... it would look better on you."