"Delany, Samuel R - Corona" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

(The last chorus swung toward the close. And the announcer's voice, not waiting for the end, cut over, "All right all you little people out there in music land Е")

"What in theЧ"

"Jesus, what's wrong withЧ"

"What happened? I told you the damn lift was broken!"

"Call the infirmary! Quick! Call theЧ"

Voices came from the level above, the level below. And footsteps. Buddy turned on the ramp and screamed and swung.

"Watch it! What's with that guyЧ"

"Here, help me hold . . . Owww!"

"He's gone berserk! Get the doc up from the infirmЧ"

("Е that was Bryan Faust's mind-twisting, brain-blowing, brand-new release, Corona! And you know it will be a hit! Е")

Somebody tried to grab him, and Buddy hit out. Blind, rolling from the hips, he tried to apprehend the agony with flailing hands. And couldn't. A flash bulb had been jammed into his eye socket and detonated. He knocked somebody else against the rail, and staggered, and shrieked.

("Е And he's come down to Earth at last, all you baby-mommas and baby-poppas! The little man from Ganymede who's been putting the music of the spheres through so many changes this past year arrived in New York this morning. And all I want to say, Bryan Е")

Rage, pain, and music.

("Е is, how do you dig our Earth!")

Buddy didn't even feel the pressure hypo on his shoulder. He collapsed as the cymbals died.




╖ ╖ ╖ ╖ ╖


Lee turned and turned the volume knob till it clicked.
In the trapezoid of sunlight over the desk from the high, small window, open now for August, lay her radio, a piece of graph paper with an incomplete integration for the area within the curve X4 + Y4 = k4, and her brown fist. Smiling, she tried to release the tension the music had built.

Her shoulders lowered, her nostrils narrowed, and her fist fell over on its back. Still, her knuckles moved to Corona's remembered rhythm.

The inside of her forearm was webbed with raw pink. There were a few marks on her right arm too. But those were three years old; from when she had been six.

Corona!

She closed her eyes and pictured the rim of the sun. Centered in the flame, with the green eyes of his German father and the high cheekbones of his Arawak mother, was the impudent and insouciant, sensual and curious face of Bryan Faust. The brassy, four-color magazine with its endless hyperbolic prose was open on her bed behind her.

Lee closed her eyes tighter. If she could reach out, and perhaps touchЧno, not him; that would be too muchЧbut someone standing, sitting, walking near him, see what seeing him close was like, hear what hearing his voice was like, through air and light: she reached out her mind, reached for the music. And heardЧ