"James Patrick Kelly - Rat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Rat
by James Patrick Kelly
James Patrick Kelly began contributing to magazines and anthologies in the late 1970s and quickly
established a reputation as a writer of well-crafted stories that take a variety of approaches to an
eclectic mix of themes. Much of his fiction is firmly grounded in social commentary. "Death
Therapy" envisions a future justice system where simulated death is used to rehabilitate criminals.
"Still Time" and "Crow" present opposing viewpoints on typical human behavior in the shadow of
nuclear war. "Pogrom" presents the generation gap in terms of future civil war. "Big Guy" explores
the breakdown of personal relationships and interactions coincident with the rise of rapid
telecommunications and virtual reality. Kelly's best short fiction has been collected in Think Like a
Dinosaur and Other Stories. His work as a novelist includes the diptych Planet of Whispers and
Look into the Sun, concerned with life on the planet Aseneshesh, where political and religious
strife replicates problems that cripple third world countries on Earth. His novel Wildlife explores
the conflict between parent and offspring in the context of biogenetic engineering, with its tale of a
young woman who rebels against the personality and destiny her father has engineered for her. He
has also collaborated with John Kessel on Freedom Beach.

RAT HAD STASHED the dust in four plastic capsules and then swallowed them. From the stinging at
the base of his ribs, he guessed they were now squeezing into his duodenum. Still plenty of time. The
bullet train had been shooting through the vacuum of the TransAtlantic tunnel for almost two hours now;
they would arrive at Port Authority/Koch soon. Customs had already been fixed, according to the
maréchal. All Rat had to do was to get back to his nest, lock the smart door behind him, and put the
word out on his protected nets. He had enough Algerian Yellow to dust at least half the cerebrums on the
East Side. If he could turn this deal, he would be rich enough to bathe in Dom Perignon and dry himself
with Gromaire tapestries. Another pang shot down his left flank. Instinctively his hind leg came off the
seat and scratched at air.
There was only one problem; Rat had decided to cut the maréchal out. That meant he had to lose the old
man's spook before he got home.
The spook had attached herself to him at Marseilles. She braided her blonde hair in pigtails. She had
freckles, wore braces on her teeth. Tiny breasts nudged a modest silk turtleneck. She looked to be
between twelve and fourteen. Cute. She had probably looked that way for twenty years, would stay the
same another twenty if she did not stop a slug first or get cut in half by some automated security laser that
tracked only heat and could not read—or be troubled by—cuteness. Their passports said they were Mr.
Sterling Jaynes and daughter Jessalynn, of Forest Hills, New York. She was typing in her notebook,
chubby fingers curled over the keys. Homework? A letter to a boyfriend? More likely she was operating
on some corporate database with scalpel code of her own devising.

"Ne fais pas semblant d'étudier, ma petite," Rat said, "Que fais-tu?"

"Oh, Daddy," she said, pouting, "can't we go back to plain old English? After all, we're almost home."
She tilted her notebook so that he could see the display. It read: "Two rows back, second seat from
aisle. Fed. If he knew you were carrying, he'd cut the dust out of you and wipe his ass with your pelt."
She tapped the Return key, and the message disappeared.

"All right, dear." He arched his back, fighting a surge of adrenaline that made his incisors click. "You
know, all of a sudden I feel hungry. Should we do something here on the train or wait until we get to
New York?" Only the spook saw him gesture back toward the fed.
"Why don't we wait for the station? More choice there."

"As you wish, dear." He wanted her to take the fed out now, but there was nothing more he dared say.