"Joe Haldeman - Seven and the Stars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

Most of the wall hangings were numbered-and-signed contemporary prints, though pride of
place went to a spare drawing by Picasso, an original nude. If she was a nut, she was the
richest one I'd ever met.
She returned with a tray, two cups of coffee, and a metal tube. "Exhibit A," she said.
The tube was very peculiar-looking. It was the kind of silvery blue you might associate
with outdoors equipment: pack frames and ski poles of anodized aluminum. But it seemed
to glow, and it was too heavy to be aluminum. Much too heavy. I hefted it in the palm of my
hand.
"Right," she said. "If that were made of solid gold it would weigh less."
"'
It s impressive." I peered through it; it was just an empty tube of thin metal. "What's the
story?"
"Exhibit B." She took the tube from me and stood it on its end, on the coffee table.
"Come on out, Seven."
A voice came from the tube. "You found one." Behind me, I heard a door click open. I
turnedтАФand saw one of those six impossible things you're supposed to believe before
breakfast.
He, or she, or it was about eight feet tall and scrawny. It had the right number of legs and
arms and eyes. No mouth to speak of, or with. Another blue tube swung on a chain around
its neck, and it walked slowly, with the aid of two staffs. It was scaly blue and smelled like
an orange grove in heat.
"Uh," I said.
"He is a scientist?" the tube said.
"Not exactly," Lydia said. "A science fiction writer."
"Please explain."
"They're people who tell stories about the future, usually in terms of science."
"We have those on my world," it said. "We keep them in a special place. Away from the
young."
"Well, there weren't any scientists at the party. The biologist didn't show up. If you'd let
me go to the universityтАФ"
"No, not yet. One at a time. Do you, science fiction writer, know much about science?"
"IтАФI read the magazines," I said. "You're . . . from another planet? Another dimension?"
"Yes, both. Perhaps he will do."
My brain was sitting there with the clutch in. The only mundane explanation I could
come up with was that this was some elaborate joke involving psychedelics. I'd been turning
down LSD for twenty years; now I wished I'd tried it once, for a data base. Everything else
seemed so real.
"Lydia, this isn't some kind of a hoax? Like a Muppet, orтАФ"
"Seven, shake hands with him."
The creature clumped over, transferred both staffs to its left hand, and offered its right. It
was rough and dry and hotter than a fevered child's skin. "I am real," it said. "At least as real
as you are."
Then it sat down, a painfully slow operation accompanied by alarming noises. Sitting on
the floor, it was almost at eye level. And too close.
"Please explain in a way he can understand, Lydia."
"Seven is marooned here. He's . . . well, something like a tourist. His ship's drive broke
down, and Earth was the nearest place where he could survive and maybe get help. He
orbited for a few weeks, monitoring our broadcasts, and then landed here."
"Reluctantly," Seven said. "I'm not really sure you can help me. From your programs it
seems likely you will harm me."