"Elizabeth Moon. The Speed of Dark " - читать интересную книгу автора

shift my attention from the beer sign to her.
We arrange ourselves around the table in the usual way and sit down.
We are having the same thing we have every time we come here, so it doesn't
take long to order. We wait for the food to come, not talking because we
are each, in our own way, settling into this situation. Because of the
visit to Dr. Fornum, I'm more aware than usual of the details of this
process: that Linda is bouncing her fingers on the bowl of her spoon in a
complex pattern that would delight a mathematician as much as it does her.
I'm watching the beer sign out of the corner of my eye, as is Dale. Cameron
is bouncing the tiny plastic dice he keeps in his pocket, discreetly enough
that people who don't know him wouldn't notice, but I can see the rhythmic
flutter of his sleeve. Bailey also watches the beer sign. Eric has taken
out his multicolor pen and is drawing tiny geometric patterns on the paper
place mat. First red, then purple, then blue, then green, then yellow, then
orange, then red again. He likes it when the food arrives just when he
finishes a color sequence.
This time the drinks come while he's at yellow; the food comes on the
next orange. His face relaxes.
We are not supposed to talk about the project off-campus. But Cameron
is still bouncing in his seat, full of his need to tell us about a problem
he solved, when we've almost finished eating. I glance around. No one is at
a table near us. "Ezzer," I say. Ezzer means "go ahead" in our private
language. We aren't supposed to have a private language and nobody thinks
we can do something like that, but we can. Many people have a private
language without even knowing it. They may call it jargon or slang, but
it's really a private language, a way of telling who is in the group and
who is not.
Cameron pulls a paper out of his pocket and spreads it out. We aren't
supposed to take papers out of the office, in case someone else gets hold
of them, but we all do it. It's hard to talk, sometimes, and much easier to
write things down or draw them.
I recognize the curly guardians Cameron always puts in the corner of
his drawings. He likes anime. I recognize as well the patterns he has
linked through a partial recursion that has the lean elegance of most of
his solutions. We all look at it and nod. "Pretty," Linda says. Her hands
jerk sideways a little; she would be flapping wildly if we were back at the
campus, but here she tries not to do it.
"Yes," Cameron says, and folds the paper back up.
I know that this exchange would not satisfy Dr. Fornum. She would want
Cameron to explain the drawing, even though it is clear to all of us. She
would want us to ask questions, make comments, talk about it. There is
nothing to talk about: it is clear to all of us what the problem was and
that Cameron's solution is good in all senses. Anything else is just busy
talk. Among ourselves we don't have to do that.
"I was wondering about the speed of dark," I say, looking down. They
will look at me, if only briefly, when I speak, and I don't want to feel
all those gazes.
"It doesn't have a speed," Eric says. "It's just the space where light
isn't."
"What would it feel like if someone ate pizza on a world with more