"Stars - 01 - Four Hundred Billion Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Always it had been in her dreams. Sleeping, her mind ranged out among the lights
of other minds, like the quivering scintillae she could call up by pressing her
closed eyelids, like the stars, each quite separate and all unaware of each
other. And sometimes, awake, she knew what other people were going to say next,
sometimes sat through whole exchanges that had the stale inevitability of a
trivia rerun.
But Dorthy seldom remembered her dreams, and she was too young to know that her
persistent deja vu was anything other than normal. It was not until she had been
contracted to the Kamali-Silver Institute that she began to realize just how
different she was, and what it meant. So the first time her Talent manifested
itself in public, no one realized what had happened, not even Dorthy.
She was six. She hadn't been going to school long, but she already knew that she
didn't like it. There were plenty of Japanese children, but they kept away from
her because of her mother, scornfully called her little half-and-half when they
talked to her at all. And for some reason Dorthy couldn't understand, most of
the other children disliked the Japanese, and included Dorthy in their dislike.
So Dorthy stood out, not of one world or the other. She became a target.
Most of the non-Japanese, the gaijin, were only mirroring their parents'
prejudices, and limited themselves to taunts and name-calling, but one girl,
Suzi Delong, took especial delight in tormenting any Japanese small enough. This
particular time she was electrified with anger, her thin elbows and knees
jerking as she held Dorthy with one hand and pinched her arms with the other,
all the while raining down accusations that all Nips smelled, that they should
go away and give real people a chance, go back to where they came from and leave
everyone alone. Her face grew redder and redder; her accusations became more
extravagant, an unstoppable flood that Dorthy didn't know how to begin to deny.
Her whole body flushed with misery and indignation as she squirmed in the other
girl's grip, and tears began to prickle behind her nose.
And inside the prickling, a picture formed. Dorthy didn't know where it came
from, but she heard herself speaking from its luminous centre.
"Well, your mother is playing a game right now with Seyour Tamiya. They're
playing a game with no clothes on!"
Then the picture was gone and Suzi was fleeing knock-kneed across the
playground. Dorthy rubbed the smarting places on her arms and was satisfied to
be left alone. But one of the teachers must have heard about it, for Dorthy was
taken to see Seyoura Yep, the school principal, at the end of classes.
Seyoura Yep was a tall pale woman who sat upright behind a desk with a glass
screen in it. Dorthy stood before the desk and watched as the principal wrote on
the glass with something not quite a pen. She wrote for a long time before at
last setting the instrument down with a small precise click; then she folded her
long white hands together and asked what the problem was.
Dorthy's teacher began to explain over Dorthy's head and all the while Seyoura
Yep stared at Dorthy. Dorthy felt hot, then cold. It seemed that something was
her fault - but hadn't Suzi started it all? After all, Suzi had picked on her,
and all along her arms were little paired bruises that proved it. But she was
too young to dare question the arbitrary authority of grownups, and here she was
in the principal's office, so she must have done something.
At last Dorthy's teacher finished her explanation. Seyoura Yep sighed and leaned
forward over her knitted fingers. "Well, we mustn't tell tales, must we? Suzi's
parents are having trouble, d'you understand, girl? You mustn't upset her." She