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

Sixty overlay tracks and one com board between Jain and maybe
Х cool million horny, sweating spectators? "Sure," I say. "Easy." But momentarily I'm not sure and I realize how tightly I'm gripping the ends of the console. I consciously will my fingers to loosen.
"Okay," the tech says. "But if anything goes wrong, cut it Right? Damp it completely."
"Got it"
"Fine," he says. "About a minute, stand by. Ms, Snow wants to say hello."
"Hello, Robbie?"
"Yeah," I say. "Good luck."
Interference crackles and what she says is too soft to hear.
I tell her, "Repeat, please."
"Stone don't break. At least not easy." She cuts off the circuit
Fve got ten seconds to stare out at that vast crowd. Where, I wonder, did the arena logistics people scrape up almost a million in/out headbands? I know I'm hallucinating, but for just a moment I see the scarlet webwork of broadcast power reaching out from my console to those million skulls. I don't know why; I find myself reaching for the shield that covers the emergency total cutoff. I stop my hand.
The house lights go all the way down; the only illumination comes from a thousand exit signs and the equipment lights. Then Moog Indigo troops onstage as the crowd begins to scream in anticipation. The group finds their instruments in the familiar darkness. The crowd is already going crazy.
Hollis strokes her color board and shoots concentric spheres of hard primaries expanding through the arena; Red, yellow, blue. Start with the basics. Red.
Nagami's synthesizer spews a volcanic flow of notes like homing magma.
And then Jain is there. Center stage.
"Damn it," says the tech in my ear. "Level's too low. Bring it up in back." I must have been dreaming. I am performing stupidly, like an amateur. Gently I bring up two stim balance slides.
"Чlove you. Every single one of you."
The crowd roars back. The filling begins. I cut in four more low-level tracks.
"Чready. How about you?"
They're ready. I cut in another dozen tracks, then mute two. Things are building just a little too fast. The fine mesh around Jain's
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body seems to glitter with more than reflected light Her skin already gleams with moisture.
"-get started easy. And then things'll get hard. Yeah?**
"YEAH!" from thousands of throats simultaneously.
I see her stagger slightly. I don't think I am feeding her too much too fast, but mute another pair of tracks anyway. Moog Indigo takes their cue and begins to play. Hollis gives the dome the smoky pallor of slow-burning leaves. Then Jain Snow sings.
And I fill her with them. And give her back to them.
space and time measured in my heart
In the afternoon:
Jain gestures in an expansive circle. "This is where I grew up."
The mountains awe me. "Right here?"
She shakes her head. "It was a lot like this. My pa ran sheep. Maybe a hundred miles north."
"But in the mountains?"
"Yeah. Really isolated. My pa convinced himself he was one of the original settlers. He was actually a laid-off aerospace engineer out of Seattle."
The wind flays us for a moment; Jain's hair whips and she shakes it back from her eyes. I pull her into the shelter of my arms, wrapping my coat around us both. "Do you want to go back down to the car?"
"Hell, no," she says. "A mountain zephyr can't scare me off."
I'm not used to this much open space; it scares me a little, though I'm not going to admit that to Jain. We're above timberiine, and the mountainside is too stark for my taste. I suddenly miss the rounded, wooded hills of Pennsylvania. Jain surveys the rocky fields rubbed raw by wind and snow, and I have a quick feeling she's scared too. "Something wrong?"
"Nope. Just remembering."
"What's it like on a ranch?"
"Okay, if you don't like people," she says slowly, obviously recalling details. "My pa didn't"
"No neighbors?"
"Not a one in twenty miles."
"Brothers?" I say. "Sisters?"
She shakes her head. "Just my pa." I guess I look curious because she looks away and adds, "My mother died of tetanus right after I was born. It was a freak thing."
I try to change the subject. "Your father didn't come down to the first concert, did he? Is he coming tonight?"
"No way," she says. "He didn't and he won't. He doesn't like what I do." I can't think of anything to say now. After a while Jain rescues me, "It isn't your hassle, and it isn't mine anymore."
Something perverse doesn't let me drop it now. "So you grew up alone."
"You noticed," she says softly. "You've got a hell of a way with understatement."