"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Questing Mind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

The same map rises from the surface of one of the desks. A holographic
projection. Reed half-smiles. An old memory must have led him to expect the map
on one of the computer screens. A similar map rises from another desk. Rodriguez
stares at them as if they hold secrets he cannot fathom. The light from the maps
reflects on his face, making his dark skin as pale as his clothes.

"I have never seen anything like this," he says.

Reed has to fight to concentrate on the words. The exhaustion and strain have
made him dizzy. He leans forward, ignoring the complaints of his back.

"Look." Rodriguez swivels the two models so that they face Reed. "You're right.
You are losing information, but the loss is not starting in the corner of one
lobe and moving in the other direction. Instead it follows pathways as we would
follow a road, as if it is searching for particular kinds of information. It is
as if these areas are washed clean."

He turns and faces Reed. The light from the maps shines over Rodriguez's
shoulders, giving him a halo. "If this is a disease, it is unlike anything we
have ever seen before."

Reed frowns. "Are you saying I'm all right?"

"No." Rodriguez temples his fingers. "Something is clearly wrong. The links
remain -- you can relearn things, but the knowledge you've stored is gone, and
that knowledge seems to be specialized. With more time, we can figure out what
areas are being affected."

"Today?" Reed asks.

Rodriguez shakes his head. "You're too tired. A week from now. Will that work
for your?"

Reed nods. Then asks the question he has been thinking since the day before. "Is
this what happened to Olive?"

"We don't know." Rodriguez wipes his hand on his pants. He turns slightly, so
that he can look at the screen instead of Reed. "She would not let us map her
brain before she died, and she insisted that no one touch it after. You cremated
her so that we would all comply with her wishes."

Reed stares at the revolving brains before him. The second is webbed with thin
lines not in the first, as if someone has poured a dark liquid into the blood
vessels to touch up the shadows. It is as if Death has shuck inside him and is
snuffing out his life, inch by painful inch.

He sleeps for another two days. The sheets in the bed are damp from his sweat.
His pillow feels hard and once he dreams he is trapped in an old CT machine, a
room-sized monstrosity that sucks him dry.