"Philip Jose Farmer - Jesus on Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Orme grinned at him. 'You aren't going to sit at the table with me?'
'I've been sitting with you at mealtime ever since the launch,' Bronski said.
'Even when you were eating the flesh of swine. Don't make light of this, Richard.
It may seem a ridiculous matter to you, but to these people it is a very serious
business. I'm not taking a chance of... uh... getting contaminated. One of us has
to have some credibility. I mean, be looked at with some respect. They might not
want to deal with you, so...тАЩ
'Just remember that I'm captain,' Orme said.
'To me you are. To them, well, I don't know. So far you're just a prisoner
who offends them because of your diet preference.'
'Yeah, but you've offended them, startled them, anyway, because you
aren't a disciple of lesous ho Christos. Of Jesus Christ. How do you reconcile
their Jewishness with their statement about Jesus?'
'I don't. I don't know what's going on here.'
Orme ate the bread (there was no butter), beans, peas, and an apple.
Bronski finished his mutton, lettuce, bread, and apple.
After a sip of the wine Bronski smacked his lips. 'Very good.'
 The captain grinned again. 'Maybe we could get a monopoly on Martian
wine. We could really clean up on Earth.'
He rose and went into an inner room. Shortly after the sound of flushing
water reached Bronski, Orme reappeared.
'I've been watching them closely, but I never see them do anything or say
anything to open the door.'
'A monitor must do it,тАЩ the Frenchman said. 'What would you do if you
could get out?'
'Take off like a stripe-assed ape.'
'That'd be foolish. You wouldn't get more than a few steps.'
'Maybe. But I'd give it the old college try. Wouldn't you come along?'
'Not unless you ordered me to,' Bronski said. 'And I'd protest. Anyway,
these people don't seem to have any sinister motives.'
'Not that you know of. But as long as we're being held in jail, we have a
duty to try to escape.'
Bronski gestured impatiently.
'They have to quarantine us. We'd do the same if they had landed on
Earth.'
'Yes, but you heard Hfathon say we had a clean bill of health. So why
don't they let us out?'
'We can't learn the language if we're acting like tourists.'
'That's the best way,' Orme said. 'Talking to the people themselves.
Anyway, they haven't even started giving us language lessons.'
Ten minutes later, he admitted that he'd been wrong, at least, in his guess
about the Martians' intentions.
Immediately after entering, and making sure that the container of ham was
disposed of, Hfathon sat down, holding a box with a large assortment of
artefacts. He held up a fork with three very long tines. Articulating slowly, he said
'Shneshdit.'
Bronski, the linguist, succeeded in reproducing the word after only two
attempts. Orme had to try four times and only succeeded when Bronski told him
that the d was pronounced with the tip of the tongue touching above the gum
ridge and the t with the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth.