"James Patrick Kelly - The Propogation of Light in a Vaccuum (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

could be dead and this is hell. Maybe the others had reasons for stranding me
here -- maybe they had no choice. When I woke up there was no one else but
her
and she's imaginary.
I have no idea how to save myself, or, indeed, if I even need saving. My
grasp
of the technology that surrounds me is uncertain at best. Do any of you
understand the dynamics of a particle with a mass of 1019 GeV? You see, most
of
us were specialists. Aside from the crew, there were programmers, biologists,
engineers, doctors, geologists, builders. Only the least important jobs went
to
people with multiple skills. I'm down on the organization chart as Nutrition
Stylist, but I'm also in a box labeled Mission Artist. Corporations pledged
money, schoolchildren sold candles and the arts lobby worked very hard to
create
a place for me on the roster. Of course, it didn't hurt my cause to be
married
to a civil engineer. My speciality has always been dabbling. I've spent a lot
of
time in front of image processors. It says on my resume that I throw pots but
I
haven't spun a wheel for years and who knows if there'll be clay where I'm
going. I write my own songs for the voice synthesizer and can even pluck a
few
chords on the guitar. I do some folk dancing and tell stories and can juggle
four balls at once. And now I style food. After I got into the starship
program
they sent me on a world tour of cooking schools. Budapest, Delhi, Paris --
more
dabbling. You know, I used to hate to cook; now dinner is all that matters.
What's the point to doing art when you have no audience?
(You've uploaded some beautiful vids. Your stills were hanging in galleries.)
They were on late at night on back channels. All right, I'm better than some,
but not as good as others. A journeyman. Yes, that sums up my condition
nicely.
My condition. Should I describe a typical day? But then the notion of day is
another fiction. The laws of science do not distinguish between past and
future.
Here the arrow of time spins at random, as in a child's game. I'm never sure
when I fall asleep whether I'm going to wake up tomorrow or yesterday.
Fortunately, the days are very similar. For purposes of sanity, I try to keep
them that way. Artists make patterns; we impose order even where there is
none.
Maybe that's why I'm still here and the others are gone.
Today, then. She snuggles next to me as I wake up. Her warm breasts nudge my
back. Her breath tickles my neck. I roll over and we kiss. Her hair is the
color
of newly-fired terra cotta. When she opens her eyes, they're green. She has
wide