"Blish, James - Anywhen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

as often as once a year, and hadn't lost one yet.
"Your indulgence, reverend sir," said a voice at his back. A white hand,
well kept but almost aggressively masculine, came over his shoulder and
moved the Fool on to the Falling Tower. "It is boorish of me to intervene,
but it discomforts me to see an implication go a-begging. I fear I am
somewhat compulsive."
The voice was a new one: therefore, belonging to the person who had been
sequestered in the diplomatic cabin up to now. Simon turned, ready to be
surly.
His next impulse was to arise and run. The question of who the creature was
evaporated in recognition of just what it was.
Superficially, he saw a man with a yellow page-boy coiffure, wearing
pale-violet hose, short russet breeches, and a tabard of deeper violet, as
well as a kangaroo-shiv, a weapon usually affected only by ladies. A
duplicate of the spider on the doorseal was emblazoned in gold on his left
breast. Superficially; for Simon was fortunate-in no way he could
explain-to be 'able to penetrate this seeming.
The "diplomat" was a vombis, or what in those same myths Simon had been
thinking of earlier was called a Proteus: a creature which could imitate
perfectly almost any life-fonn within its size range. Or nearly perfectly;
for Simon, like one in perhaps five thousand of his colleagues, was
sensitive to them, without ever being able to specify in is
 A Style in Treason

what particular their imitations of humanity were deficient. Other people,
even those of the sex opposite to the one the vombis had assumed, could find
no Raw in them. In part because they did not revert when killed, no human
had ever seen their "real" form-if they had one-though of course there were
legends aplenty. The talent might have made them ideal double agents, had it
been possible to trust them-but that was only an academic speculation, since
the vombis were wholly creatures of the Green Exarch.
Simon's third impulse, like that of any other human being in like
circumstances, was to kill this one instantly upon recognition, but that
course had too many obvious drawbacks, of which the kangaroo-shiv was the
least important. Instead, he said with only moderate ungraciousness: "No
matter. I was blocked anyhow."
:'You are most kind. May I be seated?"
'Since you're here." ,
"Thank you." The creature sat down gracefully, across the table from Simon.
"Is this your first trip to Boadacea, reverend sir?"
Simon had not said he was goingto Boadacea, but after all, it was written
on the passenger list for anyone to see.
"Yes. And you?"
"Oh, that is not my destination; I am for deeper into the cluster. But you
will find it an interesting world-especially the variations in the light;
they make it seem quite dreamlike to a native of a planet with only a
single, stable sun. And then, too, it is very old."
"What planet isn't?"
"I forget, you are from High Earth, to whom all other worlds must seem
young indeed. Nevertheless, Boadacea is quite old enough to have many