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

than one gravity?" Linda asks.
"I don't know," Dale says, sounding worried.
"The speed of not knowing," Linda says.
I puzzle at that a moment and figure it out. "Not knowing expands
faster than knowing," I say. Linda grins and ducks her head. "So the speed
of dark could be greater than the speed of light. If there always has to be
dark around the light, then it has to go out ahead of it."
"I want to go home now," Eric says. Dr. Fornum would want me to ask if
he is upset. I know he is not upset; if he goes home now he will see his
favorite TV program. We say good-bye because we are in public and we all
know you are supposed to say good-bye in public. I go back to the campus. I
want to watch my whirligigs and spin spirals for a while before going home
to bed.

C ameron and i are in the gym, talking in bursts as we bounce on the
trampolines. We have both done a lot of good work in the last few days, and
we are relaxing.
Joe Lee comes in and I look at Cameron. Joe Lee is only twenty-four.
He would be one of us if he hadn't had the treatments that were developed
too late for us. He thinks he's one of us because he knows he would have
been and he has some of our characteristics. He is very good at
abstractions and recursions, for instance. He likes some of the same games;
he likes our gym. But he is much better-he is normal, in fact-in his
ability to read minds and expressions. Normal minds and expressions. He
misses with us, who are his closest relatives in that way.
"Hi, Lou," he says to me. "Hi, Cam." I see Cameron stiffen. He doesn't
like to have his name shortened. He has told me it feels like having his
legs cut off. He has told Joe Lee, too, but Joe Lee forgets because he
spends so much of his time with the normals. "Howzitgoin?" he asks,
slurring the words and forgetting to face us so we can see his lips. I
catch it, because my auditory processing is better than Cameron's and I
know that Joe Lee often slurs his words.
"How is it going?" I say clearly, for Cameron's benefit. "Fine, Joe
Lee." Cameron breathes out.
"Didja hear?" Joe Lee asks, and without waiting for an answer he
rushes on. "Somebody's working on a reversal procedure for autism. It
worked on some rats or something, so they're trying it on primates. I'll
bet it won't be long before you guys can be normal like me."
Joe Lee has always said he's one of us, but this makes it clear that
he has never really believed it. We are "you guys" and normal is "like me."
I wonder if he said he was one of us but luckier to make us feel better or
to please someone else.
Cameron glares; I can almost feel the tangle of words filling his
throat, making it impossible for him to speak. I know better than to speak
for him. I speak only for myself, which is how everyone should speak.
"So you admit you are not one of us," I say, and Joe Lee stiffens, his
face assuming an expression I've been taught is "hurt feelings."
"How can you say that, Lou? You know it's just the treatment-"
"If you give a deaf child hearing, he is no longer one of the deaf," I
say. "If you do it early enough, he never was. It's all pretending