"David Brin - Senses Three and Six" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

never identify too closely. It'll drive you nuts.
The surface of the bar is smooth, like ivory keys, like the smooth-rubbed stick in
a trusty airplane... With my eyes closed the pounding of the drums blends with the
crowd noises and seems to become the growling of engines. A red haze under my
eyelids turns into a fire... fire on a mountainside.
My fingers press into the bar, the tendons humming momentarily as if to
something from Stravinsky...
And Parmin did have purple eyes.


Agh! Ignore it. Ignore it!
The Blue Ridge Mountain Boys are picking up a fast number beneath the spots, in
a swirling haze of tobacco smoke. I imagine the smoke contains other things, as well,
but it's hard to tell as my sense of smell isn't what it was. In fact, for reasons I'd
rather not go into, it's pretty well nonexistent. I do a quick scan around the room to
make sure no one's passing around a J too obviously. I'm no party pooper. Like I
said, I have this thing about being busted.
I'll give the Boys credit. They sure do give that hillbilly music a shitkicking beat.
The dancers on the floor are capering and screaming "Eeee-Haw!"... that city-boy
version of the mountain yell.
Chuck likes this band. He's gotten drunk with them a few times and he fixes their
bikes for less than he usually charges.
Once, though, when he'd had a bit too much brew, Chuck let them persuade him
to join them with a borrowed harmonica. He'd intended just to clown around, but got
carried away. He bent over that mouth organ and played.
By the time I came to my senses the crowd was whooping it up, the Boys
thumping me on the back, and I was blinking in the spotlight, wondering what I had
let happen.
I almost left town then and there, but that's when Elise had just broken her arm
dirt-biking with Chuck for the first time. I guess he felt guilty, so I stayed.


Strange purple eyes, hooded and cat-slitted... a smile as subtle as any man's...
A look of ages. You don't hide from eyes like those.
"You are a Protector," he said. "A certain fraction of your species cannot help
themselves in this respect. Without something or someone to protect, they wither
and die."
"Parmin, you are full of it."
Again that smile. A voice like a reed organ.
"Do you think I don't know what you are, Brad? Why were you, after all,
among the first I chose for my Cabal... ?"


There's dancing out on the sawdust now. Single girls prance around the edges as
if it's some tribal custom to let the couples take the center. I always found that an
interesting phenomenon.
The kids don't know anything about bluegrass, though some of the boys affect
harmonicas. If it's country it must be salubrious, so they hop around with thumbs in
suspenders and fingers splayed to give their dance a superficial country air.
I can't believe it. Did I just subvocalize the word "salubrious"? Sweet heavens, I