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

enough, he ended it all by announcing matter-of-factly: "Da smell funny when he came home."

Everyone got quiet. Then someone said, "Oh, Vyme, you didn't come home that way again! I mean, in
front of the children . . ."

I said a couple of things I was sorry for later and stalked off down the beachтАФon a four-mile hike.

Times I got home from work? The ecologarium? I guess I'm just leading up to this one.

The particular job had taken me a hectic week to get. It was putting back together a battleship that was
gutted somewhere off Aurigae. Only when I got there, I found I'd already been laid off. That particular
war was overтАФthey're real quick now. So I scraped and lied and browned my way into a repair gang
that was servicing a traveling replacement station, generally had to humiliate myself to get the job because
every other drive mechanic from the battleship fiasco was after it too. Then I got canned the first day
because I came to work smelling funny. It took me another week to hitch a ride back to Sigma. Didn't
even have enough to pay passage, but I made a deal with the pilot I'd do half the driving for him.

We were an hour out, and I was at the controls when something I'd never heard of happening, happened.
We came this close to ramming another ship. Consider how much empty space there is, the chances are
infinitesimal. And on top of that, every ship should be broadcasting an identification beam at all times.

But this big, bulbous keeler-intergalactic slid by so close I could see her through the front viewport. Our
inertia system went nuts. We jerked around in the stasis whirl from the keeler. I slammed on the
video-intercom and shouted, "You great big stupid . . . stupid . . ." so mad and scared I couldn't say
anything else.

The golden piloting the ship stared at me from the view-screen with mildly surprised annoyance. I
remember his face was just slightly more Negroid than mine.

Our little Serpentina couldn't hurt him. But had we been even a hundred meters closer we might have
ionized. The other pilot came bellowing from behind the sleeper curtain and started cursing me out.

"Damn it," I shouted, "it was one of those . . ." and lost all the profanity I know to my rage, ". . . golden . .
."

"This far into galactic center? Come off it. They should be hanging out around the Star-pit!"

"It was a keeler drive," I insisted. "It came right in front of us." I stopped because the control stick was
shaking in my hand. You know the Serpentina colophon? They have it in the corner of the view-screen
and raised in plastic on the head of the control knobs. Well, it got pressed into the ham of my thumb so
you could make it out for an hour, I was squeezing the control rod that tight.

When he set me down, I went straight to the bar to cool off. And got in a fight. When I reached the
beach I was broke, I had a bloody nose, I was sick, and furious.

It was just after first sunset, and the kids were squealing around the ecologarium. Then one little girl I
didn't even recognize ran up to me and jerked my arm. "Da, oh, Da! Come look! The ani-worts are just
about toтАФ"

I pushed her, and she sat down, surprised, on the sand. I just wanted to get to the water and splash