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

years, but has Chuck really been so irritable that Elise should be frightened by a
passing remark?
I shrug. "Have you eaten yet?"
"I had a snack earlier." She looks relieved. "I can fry us up a couple of steaks
when we get home, if you want me to."
She wears her light brown hair in a permanent--swept around the ears like Doris
Day. I always hated that style so Chuck tells her he likes it. She's too damn pretty
anyway. A flaw helps.
"Come on." I grab her elbow and nod at Joey to take over watching the door.
He's flirting with a teenybopper but I take the hand stamp with me. No one gets brew
here unless he's been stamped. By me.
Elise steps a little ahead of me. She knows her walk drives me crazy, even after
seven months or so of living together. It's like the way she is in bed. Totally
committed. Every move is a caress. If it's not me or her plants she's stroking, it's the
air, her clothes, the sawdust she's walking on.
She'll do. She's unsophisticated and decorative. Ideally, I'd have found someone
without any education, but hell, everyone's been to college these days. At least she
doesn't remind me of things, and she tries awful hard to please me.
The thing I guess I feel guilty about is leading her on. She obviously thinks she's
going to work on me real hard and maybe I'll ask her to marry me. She's wrong.
I've already decided to marry her. But I have to keep up appearances. I'm the
strong, silent type, remember? Chuck will have to be coaxed.
Damn it, I've got to stay in character! Would it do her any good to have Them
catch up with me?


Old Joe Clark has got a house.
 Sixteen storeys high,
And every storey in that house,
Is filled with chicken pie.


"Tell me what you're thinking."
Her hand is on my arm, playing with the thick hairs that gather under the shirt cuff.
Those deep brown eyes of hers--she uses them like fingertips to touch my face
lightly, shyly, as if to make sure I'm really there--they seem to show concern. Is it
that obvious I'm not myself tonight?
That jet, flying so high in the sunshine... young Allan Fowler coming by later, to
pester me with his foolishness... then all this philosophical crap I've been
internalizing all night. Yeah, I'm going to have to pay attention to the old facade.
The secret of lying well is to do as little as possible.
"Oh, I was just thinking about that song they're doing now. We used to sing it
when I was a kid. There's about a thousand verses." I take a long pull from my beer.
"I didn't know you used to sing, too. Is that when you learned the harmonica?"
Her voice trembles just a bit, but the part of me controlling the mouth doesn't seem
to notice. I'm on automatic.
"Um, yeah. Some of the other kids with folks at the Institute and I, we formed the
Stygian Stegosaurus Band. Thought we were pretty hot shit. We played frat houses
and the like. Nothing serious. Father bought me a banjo, but it never really took like
the piano."