"Ian R. MacLeod - Home Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Macleod Ian R)

where the absence of everything means even an absence of nothing. We all know
that our eyes are simply tricking us when we try to look. We know by now that
it's better not to.

The screen registers contact. Stocking ladders of data flutter and clear. Figgis
sits back and rests his hands behind his neck. The chair creaks. I can smell his
sweat. I guess he can smell mine. We brace ourselves for something more. But
that's it. This is March 14, 1912. Epsilon is well within tolerance--even if
we're not. Figgis pulls harder at his beard. Janey draws another flake of skin
back across her lips.

"So what we have here," Figgis says, "is 1912. Tell us what's happening,
Woolley."

This is our ritual. I half-close my eyes and recite that Asquith is Prime
Minister in Britain, that the Titanic will soon be starting her maiden voyage
from Southampton. I describe how Nijinsky's wowing Paris, and explain that China
teas just become a Republic. I don't mention that Roald Amundsen has reached the
Pole a month and a half ago, and that Captain Scott's men are still struggling
to get back to Cape Evans. That goes without saying.

"You see," Figgis says to Janey, tipping her a smile, the beginnings of a
reconciliation. "Woolley knows her stuff."

"That's me," I say. I grin and slap the strut I'm leaning on with one of my big
hammy hands. "Good old Doctor Woolley...." Epsilon booms faintly. "Let's get
going."

"You're the boss," Janey smiles up at me. For a weird moment, I can almost see
why men find her attractive. And I wonder if I'd become a lesbian if she turned
it on strongly enough using all that stuff with the pressing tits and the
fluttering eyelashes, the way she does with Figgis. Perhaps that would be the
answer to all Woolley's problems. Janey's smile widens. Woolley finds herself
blushing as she heads for the ladder between the dangling knickers and Y-fronts.

JANEY PILOTS the canhopper. Figgis and I squat on the rumbling seats over the
engines with the stretcher I rack crammed behind. Watching Janey now, brushing
the controls as though they were bruised, the sleeves of her outsuit rolled back
from those narrow wrists, I can't help but admire her ease and absorption. The
canhopper rocks slightly as the eddy from an ice dune tucks under the fuselage
and her hand slides out to brush the boost control. The tone of the right engine
alters a fraction through my pelvis, then resumes.

Figgis has got the big Canon holocam balanced on his lap. He nods toward it and
says to me, "Did I tell you that Janey and I gave this a trial run a few weeks
ago in her torpedo tube?" He's grinning. Back in 1650, Janey and Figgis were at
maximum rut for each other. It didn't exactly keep them quiet, but it did keep
them more or less out of my way.
I force a nod, and the skin of my outsuit crackles as if it shares my
discomfort. Janey's eyes are still on the window. She doesn't even blink. She's