"Reed, Robert - TheRemoras" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

"Miss?"

Quee Lee thought of herself as being a good person. Yet she couldn't help but
feel repelled, the floor rolling beneath her and her breath stopping short.
Orleans was a human being, one of her own species. True, his genetics had been
transformed by hard radiations. And yes, he normally lived apart from ordinary
people like her. But inside him was a human mind, tough and potentially
immortal. Quee Lee blinked and remembered that she had compassion as well as
charity for everyone, even aliens . . . and she managed to sputter, "Come in."
She said, "If you wish, please do," and with that invitation, her apartment
deactivated the invisible screen.

"Thank you, miss." The Remora walked slowly, almost clumsily, his lifesuit
making a harsh grinding noise in the knees and hips. That wasn't normal, she
realized. Orleans should be graceful, his suit powerful, serving him as an
elaborate exoskeleton.

"Would you like anything?" she asked foolishly. Out of habit.

"No, thank you," he replied, his voice nothing but pleasant.

Of course. Remoras ate and drank only self-made concoctions. They were
permanently sealed inside their lifesuits, functioning as perfectly
self-contained organisms. Food was synthesized, water recycled, and they

possessed a religious sense of purity and independence.

"I don't wish to bother you, miss. I'll be brief."

His politeness was a minor surprise. Remoras typically were distant, even
arrogant. But Orleans continued to smile, watching her. One eye was a muscular
pit filled with thick black hairs, and she assumed those hairs were light
sensitive. Like an insect's compound eye, each one might build part of an image.
By contrast, its mate was ordinary, white and fishy with a foggy black center.
Mutations could do astonishing things. An accelerated, partly controlled
evolution was occurring inside that suit, even while Orleans stood before her,
boots stomping on the stone floor, a single spark arcing toward her. Orleans
said, "I know this is embarrassing for you --"

"No, no," she offered.

"-- and it makes me uncomfortable too. I wouldn't have come down here if it
wasn't necessary."

"Perri's gone," she repeated, "and I don't know when he'll be back. I'm sorry."

"Actually," said Orleans, "I was hoping he would be gone."

"Did you?"