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

"Sir," I say, "there's nothing we can do here. We're just going to have to return home and let Earth figure a way out of this thing. Let them handle it." Absurd, absurd, I know how absurd the suggestion is even as I voice it, no one on Earth is going to be able to defy the edict. "We haven't any choice, sir, they want us to go now, and I think we'd better do it"
The captain glares at me and balls his meaty hands into fists. I tense in expectation of blows which do not fall. Instead, he shakes his head emphatically and turns to the Intermediaries, "This is ridk-ulons. Thoroughly ridiculous."
"Captain-"
He silences me with an imperious gesture. "Who do these Sreen think they ore?"
"The true and indisputable masters of the universe," the Intenne-
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diaries pipe in one high but full-toned voice, "the lords of Creation."
"I want to see them," the captain insists.
"You must return to your ship," they insist, "and obey the will of the Sreen."
"Like hell! Like bloody God-damned hell! Where are they? What makes them think they have the right, the right, to claim the whole damned universe for themselves?" The captain's voice is going up the scale, becoming a shriek, and filled though I am with terror of the Sreen, I am also caught up in fierce admiration for my superior officer. He may be a suicidal fool to refuse to accept the situation, but there is passion in his foolishness, and it is an infectious passion. "How dare they treat us this way? What do they mean, ordering us to go home and stay there because they own the universe?"
He takes a step toward the door. The Intermediaries move to block his path. With an inarticulate screech, he ploughs through them, swatting them aside with the backs of his hands, kicking them out of his way with his heavy-booted feet. The Intermediaries break easily, and it occurs to me then that they are probably as disposable a commodity among the Sreen as tissue paper is among human beings. One Intermediary is left limping along after the captain. Through the clear pale skin of its back, I see that some vertebrae have been badly dislocated. The thing nevertheless succeeds in overtaking the captain and wrapping its appendages around his calf, bleating all the while, "No, no, you must abide by the edict, even as every other inferior species has, you must abide. . . ." The captain is having trouble disentangling himself, and so I go to him. Together, we tear the Intermediary loose. The captain flings it aside, and it bounces off the great portal, spins across the polished floor, lies crushed and unmoving.
Side by side, we pause directly before the door. My teeth, I suddenly realize, are chattering with fear. "Captain," I say as my resolve begins to disintegrate, "why are we doing this?"
"The nature of the beast," he mutters, almost sadly, and smacks the palm of his gloved hand against the portal. "Sreen!" he yells. "Come out, Sreen!"
And we wait
"If we don't make it home from this," I say at length, "if they never hear from us back on Earth, never know what became of their starshipЧ"
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"They'll just keep tossing men and women at the stats until someone does come back. Sreen or no Sreen." The captain strikes the door again, with the edge of his fist this time. "Sreen!" A bellow which, curiously, does not echo in the vast antechamber. "Sreenl SREEN!"
The door starts to swing back on noiseless hinges, and a breath of cold, unbelievably cold air touches our faces. The door swings open. The door swings open. The door swings open forever before we finally see into the next chamber.
"Oh my God," I whisper to the captain, "oh, oh my God."
They are titans, they are the true and indisputable masters of the universe, the lords of Creation, and they are unhappy with us. They speak, and theirs is a voice that shatters mountains. "WHO. ARE. YOU?"
The captain's lips draw back over his teeth in a mirthless grin as he plants his fists on his hips, throws back his head, thrusts out his jaw. "Who wants to know?"
Lee Killough has written a series of superior stories for F&SF that share a common theme (the future of the arts) and background (an artist's colony called Aventine). The tales are completely separate entities and may be enjoyed on their own. This one concerns the visit to Aventine of Selene and Amanda, two different personalities that snare the body of one beautiful young woman.
A House Divided
by LEE KILLOUGH
Amanda Gafl and Selene Randall came to Aventine during the autumn hiatus, when the last of the summer residents had gone back to jobs in the city or followed the sun south, and the winter influx of skiers and skaters was still some weeks away. Aventine scarcely noticed them, and if my current cohab had not gone off through the Diana Mountain Stargate on some interstellar artists' junket, they might never have been more than clients to me, either. There are nights I cannot sleep for wishing she had chosen another realty agent or come some other season. I was alone, though, in the boredom of autumn when Amanda walked into my office with her seeds of tragedy and elected me gardener.
"Matthew Gordon?" she asked in a soft, hesitant voice I remembered from political broadcasts in the last election, extolling the senatorial virtues of her father. 'Tm Amanda Gail. I wired you about renting a cabin?"
I nodded. "I have your wire."
Her pictures, though, did not do her justice. Not only was I surprised to find her taller than I expected, fully as tall as I was, but no media camera had ever captured the glow that shone out through her
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otherwise rather plain face, giving her the look of a Renaissance Madonna and adding nostalgic charm to her loose topknot of copper hair and high-waisted Regency-style dress.
"How many will be in your party?" I asked.
Eyes with the warm brilliance of goldstone looked at me through her lashes. "I'm alone."
I nodded again, at the same time wondering how Amanda Gail could ever, really, consider herself alone. The acrimonious divorce of former Olympic runner Margot Randall and Senator Charles Christopher Gail had traumatically divided not only Amanda's childhood but her very psyche. Five years ago, when Margot Randall died hi a hovercraft accident and Amanda moved to Washington full-time, it emerged that for most of her childhood, Amanda Selene Gail had been two personalities, Amanda Gail and another calling herself Selene Randall. The revelation, and their decision to remain dissociated, had made them the darlings of the gossip columns.
"Senator Moran told me I could live here in privacy. Is that true?" Amanda asked.
"Yes. Aventine has too many rich and famous residents to care about another celebrity, and as we have no hotels or public transportation and the cabletrain from Gateside is the only way in, aside from private aircraft on private landing fields, we manage to discourage most reporters and curiosity seekers."
She smiled. "Wonderful."
That smile was remarkable. It turned the light hi her to dazzling incandescence.
"My runabout is outside. IT! show you what I have available."
I was carrying a long list of rentals, owned by summer people who authorized whiter leasing to pay for the upkeep on their property. They were all over Aventine, from a few apartments down near the shopping square to cabins in the woods and along the shores of both the Lunamere and Heliomere. I explained the choices to Amanda as I handed her into the runabout and unplugged the car from its charger. The Lunamere's main attraction in winter was that it froze over, making sixteen kilometers of ice for skating. The Heliomere was fed by hot springs and, at thirty-five degrees C, was suitable for year-round swimming.
"Tin no swimmer but I prefer hot water to ice," Amanda said.
I drove her up to a little A-frame at No. 43 Apollo on the lower
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shore of the Heliomere. It was a good size for a single person, with a deck all around and steps down to the beach in back. Amanda admired the white expanse of the beach, which would have gratified the city council. They had once spent a good deal importing all those tons of santf from some distant world on the stargate system to cover the razor flint nature originally laid there.
What brought another of those incredible smiles was the interior. Not only did the carpeting continue up the walls, but as she walked from the kitchen, across the lounge area to the fireplace, and turned to look up at the sleeping loft, each place her feet touched a patch changed color to a pale, clear yellow. She stared, then laughed and ran her hands along the back of a chair. It, too, changed color, to a pattern of pastel greens and yellows.
"PolySensitives," she said. "I haven't seen any of these since I was a little girt." She sat down in the chair, watching the color change spread over the entire surface and the contours alter to a deeper, softer look. "How fun."
Unfortunately the polys were not always fun. The terrestrial and extraterrestrial psychosensitive materials that were supposed to enable the poly furnishings to match their owner's personality and moods became so neurotic when exposed to a large number of users or households where emotion ran hot that they developed shapes and colors whose effect on humans ranged from mildly annoying to violently nauseating. Polys were appropriate for Amanda, though. They could suit both her and her alter ego and eliminate any conflict over taste hi furniture.