"Dan Simmons - Phases of Gravity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Simmons Dan)

India. Are you hungry, Richard?' It was not yet six-thirty in the morning but the terminal was
filling with people. Others still lay sleeping on the cracked and filthy linoleum floors. Baedecker
wondered if they were potential passengers or merely people seeking a roof for the night. A baby
sat alone on a black vinyl chair and cried lustily. Lizards slid across the walls.
Maggie led him to a small coffee shop on the second floor where sleepy waiters stood with
soiled towels over their arms. Maggie warned him not to try the bacon and then ordered an
omelette, toast and jelly, and tea. Baedecker considered the idea of breakfast and then rejected it.
What he really wanted was a Scotch. He ordered black coffee.
The big room was empty of other customers except for one table filled with a loud crew of
Russians from an Aeroflot liner Baedecker could see out the window. They were snapping
fingers to call over the tired Indian waiters. Baedecker glanced at the captain and then looked
again. The big man looked familiar — although Baedecker told himself that a lot of Soviet pilots
have such jowls and formidable eyebrows. Nonetheless, Baedecker wondered if he had met him
during the three days he had toured Moscow and Star City with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project
crew. He shrugged. It did not matter.
'How is Scott?' he asked.
Maggie Brown looked up and a slightly guarded expression seemed to settle over her like a
fine veil. 'Fine. He says that he's never felt so good but I think he's lost some weight.' Baedecker
had an image of his stocky son, in crew cut and T-shirt, wanting to play shortstop on the Houston
Little League team but being too slow, fit only for right field. 'How is his asthma? Has this
humidity caused it to kick up again?'
'No, the asthma's cured,' said Maggie levelly. 'The Master cured it, according to Scott.'
Baedecker blinked. Even in recent years, in his empty apartment, he had found himself listening
for the coughs, the raspy breathing. He remembered the times he had held the boy like an infant
through the night, rocking him, both of them frightened by the gurgling in his lungs. 'Are you a
follower of this . . . of the Master?' Maggie laughed and the veil seemed to slip from her green
eyes. 'No. I wouldn't be here if I were. They don't allow them to leave the ashram for more than a
few hours.'
'Hmmm,' said Baedecker and glanced at his watch. Ninety minutes until his flight left for
Bombay.
'It'll be late,' said Maggie.
'Oh?' Baedecker wasn't sure of what she was talking about. 'Your flight. It'll be late. What are
you going to do until Tuesday?' Baedecker had not thought about that. It was Thursday morning.
He had planned to be in Bombay this same afternoon, see the electronics people and their earth
station on Friday, take the train to Poona to visit Scott over the weekend, and fly out of Bombay
for home on Monday afternoon.
'I'm not sure,' he said. 'Stay in Bombay a couple of extra days, I suppose. What was so
important about this retreat that Scott couldn't take some time off?'
'Nothing,' said Maggie Brown. She drank the last of her tea and set the cup down with an
abrupt movement that held the hint of anger. 'It's the same stuff as always. Lectures from the
Master. Solitude sessions. Dances.'
'Dances?'
'Well, not really. They play music. The beat picks up. Faster and faster. They move around.
Faster and faster. Finally they collapse from exhaustion. It cleanses the soul. That's part of the
tantra yoga thing.' Baedecker could hear her silences. He'd read some about this ex-philosophy
professor who had become the most recent guru to young rich kids from so many well-to-do
nations. According to Time, the Indian locals had been shocked at reports of group sex at his
ashrams. Baedecker had been shocked when Joan told him that Scott had dropped out of
graduate school in Boston to go halfway around the world. In search of what?
'You don't seem to approve,' he said to Maggie Brown.