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

Mr. Robot, That's Me, ISAAC ASIMOV
GutS, LESTER DEL REY
We Sold Space, POHL & KORKBLUTH
Shove Over! Shove Over!, HARRY HARRISON
Don't Ask, Dragoon, GORDON DICKSON
A Bit Unclear, H, BEAM PIPER
Not That One, TOM TRYON
тАФDarnel P. Dern
тАФJohn Bittingsley


Here is yet another treat from the master of the contemporary chiller. And speaking of chills,
Robert Bloch's latest book is a collection of scary stories published by Doubleday and titled Cold
Chills.

Nina
by ROBERT BLOCK

After the love-making Nolan needed another drink.
He fumbled for the bottle beside the bed, gripping it with a sweaty hand. His entire body was wet
and clammy, and his fingers shook as they unscrewed the cap. For a moment Nolan wondered if he was
coming down with another bout of fever. Then, as the harsh heat of the rum scalded his stomach, he
realized the truth.
Nina had done this to him,
Nolan turned and glanced at the girl who lay beside him. She stared up through the shadows with
slitted eyes unblinking above high cheekbones, her thin brown body relaxed and immobile. Hard to
believe that only moments ago this same body had been a writhing, wriggling coil of insatiable appetite,
gripping and enfolding him until he was drained and spent.
He held the bottle out to her. "Have a drink?"
She shook her head, eyes hooded and expressionless, and then Nolan remembered that she didn't
speak English. He raised the bottle and drank again, cursing himself for his mistake.
It had been a mistake, he realized that now, but Darlene would never understand. Sitting there safe
and snug in the apartment in Trenton, she couldn't begin to know what he'd gone through for her
sakeтАФhers and little Robbie's. Robert Emmett Nolan II, nine weeks old now, his son, whom he'd never
seen. That's why he'd taken the job, signed on with the company for a year. The money was good,
enough to keep Darlene in comfort and tide them over after he got back. She couldn't have come with
him, not while she was carrying the kid, so he came alone, figuring no sweat.
No sweat. That was a laugh. All he'd done since he got here was sweat. Patrolling the plantation at
sunup, loading cargo all day for the boats that went downriver, squinting over paperwork while night
closed down on the bungalow to imprison him behind a wall of jungle darkness. And at night the noises
cameтАФthe hum of insect hordes, the bellow of caimans, the snorting snuffle of peccary, the ceaseless
chatter of monkeys intermingled with the screeching of a milling mindless birds.
So he'd started to drink. First the good bourbon from the company's stock, then the halfway-decent
trade gin, and now the cheap rum.
As Nolan set the empty bottle down he heard the noise he'd come to dread worst of allтАФthe endless
echo of drums from the huts huddled beside the riverbank below. Miserable wretches were at it again.
No wonder he had to drive them daily to fulfill the company's quota. The wonder was that they did
anything at all after spending every night wailing to those damned drums.
Of course it was Moises who did the actual driving; Nolan couldn't even chew them out properly
because they were too damned dumb to understand plain English.