"When I Was Miss Dow by Sonya Dorman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Award Stories 2)

altfeoHgbhe's so adjusted to these contrasts he doesn't so
much as blink. Floating in the sunshine I've become opaque.
He can't see anything but my surface tensions, and I wonder
what he does in his spare time. A part of me seems to tilt, or
slide.
"There, there, oh dear. Miss Dow," he says, patting my
back, rubbing my shoulder blades. His forearms and fingers
extend gingerly. "You do want to breed only the best, don't
you?" he asks. I begin within me a compulsive ritual of
counting the elements; it's all I can do to keep communica-
tions open between my brain lobes. I'm suffering from
eclipses: one goes dark, the other lights up, that one goes
dark, the other goes nova.
"There, there," the Doctor says, distressed because I'm
quivering and trying to keep the connections open; I have
never felt clogged before. They may have to put me back into
the pattern tank.
Profoundly disturbed, I lift my face, and he gives me a kiss.
Then I'm all right, balanced again, one lobe composing a
concerto for virtix flute, the other one projecting, "Oh Arnie,
oh Arnie." Yes, I'm okay for the shape I'm in. He's marking
my joints with his wax pencil (the marks of which can be
easily erased from the film surface) and he's mumbling, "It's
essential, oh yes, it's essential."
Finally he says, "I guess all of us colonists are lonely here,"
and I say, "Oh yes, aren't we," before I realize the enormity
of the Warden's manipulations, and what a lot I have to learn.
Evidently the Warden triple-carded me through the Colony
Punch Center as a Terran. I lie and say, "Oh, yes. Yes, yes.
Oh, Arnie, put out the light," for we may find some more
truth.
"Not here," Arnie says, and of course he's right. This is a
room for study, for cataloguing obvious facts, not a place for
carnival. There are not many places for it, I discover with
.surprise. Having lived in glass all my life I expect everyone
' 'else to be as comfortable there as I am but this isn't so.
Just the same we find his quarters, after dark, to be
comfortable and free of embarrassment. You wouldn't think a
dedicated man of his age would be so vigorous, but I find out
he spends his weekends at the recreation center hitting a ball
with his hand. The ball bounces back off a wall and he hits it
and hits it. Though he's given that up now because we're
together on weekends.
"You're more than an old bachelor like me deserves," he
tells me.
"Why are you an old bachelor?" I ask him. I do wonder
why, if it's something not to be.
He tries to explain it to me. "I'm not a young man. I
wouldn't make a good husband, I'm afraid. I like to work
late, to be undisturbed. In my leisure time, I like to make