"Samuel R. Delany - The Star Pit" - читать интересную книгу автора (Delaney Samuel R)

"Aw, it'll only take a couple of hours. You're half done anyway. I figured you'd throw in the tune-up
along with it. If you really want the money, I'll get it to you a little at a time. Vyme, what sort of
professional discount will you give me? I'm just a grease monkey, but I'm still in the business."
I whacked the back of his red head between a-little-too-playfully and not-too-hard. "Come on,
kid-boy," I said. "Help me take care of puddles downstairs. Sandy, finish it up, huh?"

Sandy grunted and plunged both hands back into the organum. As soon as the lift door closed, Ratlit
demanded, "You gonna give it to me, Vyme?"

"It's Sandy's ship," I said.

"You tell him, and he will."

I laughed. "You tell me how your golden turned out when he came to. I assume that's who you want the
ship for. What sort of fellow was he?"

Ratlit hooked his fingers in the mesh wall of the lift cage and leaned back. "They're only two types of
golden." He began to swing from side to side. "Mean ones and stupid ones." He was repeating a
standard line around the Star-pit.

"I hopes yours is stupid," I said, thinking of the two who'd just ruined Sandy's day and upset mine.

"Which is worse?" Ratlit shrugged. That is the rest of the line. When a golden isn't being outright mean, he
exhibits the sort of nonthinkingness that gets other people hurtтАФ you remember the one that nearly
rammed my ship, or the ones who didn't bother to bring back the Kyber antitoxin? "But this oneтАФ" Ratlit
stood up "тАФis unbelievably stupid."

"Yesterday you hated them. Today you want to give one a ship?"

"He doesn't have one," Ratlit explained calmly, as though that warranted all change of attitude. "And
because he's sick, it'll be hard for him to find work unless he has one of his own."

"I see." We bounced on the silicon cushion. I pushed open the door and started for the office. "What all
went on after I left? I must have missed the best part of the evening."

"You did. Will I really need that much more sleep when I pass thirty-five?"

"Cut the cracks and tell me what happened."

"WellтАФ" Ratlit leaned against the office door jamb while I dialed necrotics. "Alegra and I talked a little
after you left, till finally we realized the golden was awake and listening. Then he told us we were
beautiful."

I raised an eyebrow. "Mmmm?"

"That's what we said. And he said it again, that watching us talk and think and build was one of the most
beautiful things he'd ever seen. 'What have you seen?' we asked him. And he began to tell us." Ratlit
stopped breathing, something built up, then, at once, it came out. "Oh, Vyme, the places he's been! The
things he's done! The landscapes he's starved in, the hells where he's had to lie down and go to sleep he