"EB - Edward L. Ferman - The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction 23rd EditionUC - SS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

"It's true," I say.
"Won't work."
"Doesn't matter," I say.
"It can't work."
I know I don't have any right to feel this, but I'm pissed, and so I move away in the bed. "I don't care." The first time: "Such a goddamned adolescent, Rob."
After a while, she says, "Robbie, I'm cold,** and so I move bade to her and hold her and say nothing. I realize, rubbing against her hip, that Pm again hard; she doesn't object as I pour back into her all the frustration she unloaded in me earlier.
Neither of us sleeps much the rest of the night. Sometime before dawn I doze briefly and awaken from a nightmare. I am disoriented and can't remember the entirety of the dream, but I do remember hard wires and soft flows of electrons. My eyes suddenly focus and I see her face inches away from mine. Somehow she knows what I am thinking. "Whose turn is it?" she says. The antenna.
vra
At least a thousand hired kids are there setting up chairs in the arena this morning, but it's still hard to feel I'm not alone. The dome is that big. Voices get lost here. Even thoughts echo.
'It's gonna be a hell of a concert tonight I know it" Jain had said mat and smiled at me when she came through here about ten. She'd swept down the center aisle in a flurry of feathers and shimmering red strips, leaving all the civilians stunned and quivering.
God only knows why she was up this early; over the last eight
months, Fve never seen her get op before noon on a concert day. That kind of sleep-in routine would kill me. I was out of bed by eight this morning, partly because Fve got to get this console modified by showtime, and partly because I didn't feel like being in the star's bed when she woke up.
"Hie gate's going to be a lot bigger than last night," Jain had said. "Can you handle it?"
"Sure. Can you?"
Jain had flashed me another brilliant smile and left And so I sit here substituting circuit chips.
A couple kids climb on stage and pull breakfasts out of their backpacks. "You ever read this?" says one, pulling a tattered paperback from his hip pocket His friend shakes her head. "You?" He turns the book in my direction; I recognize the cover.
It was two, maybe three months ago in Memphis, in a studio just before rehearsal. Jain had been sitting and reading. She reads quite a lot, though the promotional people downplay itЧAlpertron, Ltd, likes to suck the country-girl image for all it's worth.
"What's that?" Stella says.
"A book." Jain holds up the book so she can see.
"I know that" Stella reads the title: Receptacle. "Isn't that the-"
"Yeah," says Jain.
Everybody knows about ReceptacleЧfat best seller of the year. It's all fact, about the guy who went to Prague to have a dozen artificial vaginas implanted all over his body. Nerve grafts, neural rerouting, the works. Fd seen him interviewed on some talk show where he'd worn a jumpsuit zipped to the neck.
"It's grotesque," Stella says.
Jain takes back the book and shrugs.
"Would yon try something like this?"
"Maybe I'm way beyond it" A receptacle works only one-way.
Stella goes white and bites off whatever it is she was about to say.
"Oh, baby, I'm sorry." Jam smiles and looks fourteen again. Then Хhe stands and gives Stella a quick hug. She glances over at me and winks, and my face starts to flush. One-way.
Now, months later, I remember it and my skin again goes warm. "Get oat of here," I say to the lads. "I'm trying to concentrate." They look irritated, but they leave.
80
Edward Bryant
Stone
81
Fm done with the circuit chips. Now the easy staff. I wryly note the male and female plugs Fm connecting. Jain. . .
The com circuit buzzes peremptorily and Jain's voice says, "Robbie? Can you meet me outside?"
I hesitate, then say, "Sure, I'm almost done with the board."
*Tve got a car; we're going away."
"What?"
"Just for the afternoon."
"Listen, JainЧ"
She says, "Hurry," and cuts off.
It's gonna be a hell of a concert.
DC
Tonight's crowd strains even the capacity of the Rocky Mountain Central Arena. The gate people say there are more than nine hundred thousand people packed into the smoky recesses of the dome. It's not just hard to believe; it's scary. But computer ticket-totes don't lie.
I look out at the crowd and it's like staring at the Pacific after dark; the gray waves march out to the horizon until you can't tell one from the other. Here on the stage, the crowd-mutter even sounds like the sea, exactly as though I was on the beach trying to hear in an eighteen-foot surf. It all washes around me and I'm grateful for the twin earpieces, reassured to hear the usual check-down lists on the in-house com circuit
I notice that the blowers have cut off. It's earlier than usual, but obviously there's enough body heat to keep the dome buoyed aloft I imagine the Central Arena drifting away like that floating city they want to make out of Venice, California. There is something appealing about the thought of this dome floating away like dandelion fluff. But now the massive air-conditioning units hum on and the fantasy dies.
The house lights momentarily dim and the crowd noise raises a few decibels. I realize I can't see features or faces or even separate bodies. There are simply too many people to comprehend. The crowd has fused into one huge tectonic slab of flesh.
"Rob, are you ready?" The tech's soft voice in my earpiece.
"Ready."
"It's a big gate tonight Can you do it?"