"Edward L. Ferman - Best From F&SF, 23rd Edition" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ferman Edward L)

I say, "Sure."
"Really?"
"Of course." I smile. I know how to play.
"This is no game."
My face must betray my confusion. I don't know how I should react.
Her expression mercurially alters to sadness. "You're scissors, Robbie. All shiny cold metal. How
can you ever hope to cut stone?"
Would I want to?

XI

Things get worse.
Is it simply that I'm screwing up on my own hook, or is it because we're exploring a place no
performance has ever been? I don't have time to worry about it; I play the console like it was the
keyboard on Nagami's synthesizer.
Take it
When you can get it
Where you can get it
Jain sways and the crowd sways; she thrusts and the crowd thrusts. It is one gigantic act. It is as
though a temblor shakes the Front Range.
Insect cluttering in my earpiece: "What the hell's going on, Rob? Tm monitoring the stim feed. You're
oscillating from bell to fade-out."
тАЬIтАЩm trying to balance." I juggle slides. "Any better?"
"At least it's no worse," says the tech. He pauses. "Can you manage the payoff?"
The payoff. The precision-engineered and carefully timed upslope leading to climax. The Big
Number. I've kept the stim tracks plateaued for the past three sets. "Coining," I say. "It's coming. There's
time."
"You're in bad trouble with New York if there isn't," says the tech. "I want to register a jag. Now."
"Okay," I say.
Love me Eat me All of me
"Better," the tech says. "But keep it rising. I'm still only registering a sixty per cent."
Sure, bastard. It isn't your brain burning with the output of these million strangers. My violence
surprises me. But I push the stim up to seventy. Then Nagami goes into a synthesizer riff, and Jam sags
back against a vertical rank of amps.
"Robbie?" It comes into my left ear, on the in-house com circuit reserved for performer and me
alone.
"I'm here, Jain."
 "You're not trying, babe,"
I stare across the stage and she's looking back at me. Her eyes flash emerald in the wave from Hollis'
color generator. She sub-vocalizes so her lips don't move.
"I mean it."
This is new territory," I answer. "We never had a million before." I know she thinks it's an excuse.
"This is it, babe," she says. "It's tonight. Will you help me?"
IтАЩve known the question would come, though I hadn't known who'd articulate itтАФher or me. My
hesitation stretches much longer in my head than it does in realtime. So much passion, Rob. . . . It seems
to build. Would you kill for me? "Yes," I say.
"Then I love you," and breaks off as the riff ends and she struts back out into the light. I reluctantly
touch the console and push the stim to seventy-five. Fifty tracks are in. Jain, will you love me if I don't?
A bitter look
Eighty. I engage five more tracks. Five to go. The crowd's getting damn near all of her. And, of