"M. John Harrison - The Centauri Device" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison John M)

counterparts. They are the true aliens. So he regarded her with a certain
wariness.
"Mr. Truck, I have been searching the port -for you."
"Go on," said Truck. "You say that to all the spacers. It's 'Captain.' Is
there something I can do for your'
(He knew it was a mistake, even then. Tiny was driving his band through the
first four bars of "Where Was Tomorrow?" He recognized it for an omen.)
She told him her name. She was a big, bony girl, but her face was pinched a
little round the eyes and mouth. It wasn't simply the mark of a port
ladyтАФalthough they too are tense and contained as if perpetually struggling to
keep their substance from evaporating off into the void.
Her clothes glittered and dissolved irregularly as the kaleidomat light found
frequencies critical to the opacity of the material.
**Captain Truck, how would you like a job?"
He shook his head.
"Come back in two weeks. I shall be stoned on Sad al Ban here for two weeks."
He demonstrated by waving his hands about like airplanes. "Bombed out Unless
Tiny gets desperate."
"It isn't a haulage job, Captain. You won't need to fly."
"They're the only kind I take. I've got a Chromian
8
The Centaur/ Device
bosun to support. Really, you should find someone else. Not that I'm not
grateful for the offer."
He thought for a moment.
"Besides which," he said, "you aren't hiring me." For a loser, that was pretty
acute.
She leaned forward earnestly, put her elbows on the table. She toyed with the
dregs of his knickerbocker glory, then clasped her hands.
"That's true. But my sponsor will pay better for a few weeks of your time than
any comparable haulage job, and you didn't make much on that last seed run."
He had to give her credit for that. **You," he said, "have been talking to
somebody. They were right. But I don't need money that badly. In two weeks,
yes."
"Captain Track,** she said, drawing her chair closer to the table, "what if I
told you this was a chance to do something for the Galaxy?**
He sighed.
"Fd say you have picked a loser. If it's politics, Miss Seng, double screw
it." He beamed at her. "I'm not very political, you see," he explained.
She got up without another word.
"You're not a port lady at all," he called after her as she threaded her way
through the audience to the door. But he wasn't really talking to her.
The evening went on, the Spacer's Rave got packed out. The management closed
the doors in a suicidal move to suffocate the hands that fed it. "I'm gonna
rock and roll you baby," sang Tiny Skeffern, "rock and roll you all night
long,"тАФan old sentiment, and enduring but Track had lost interest. About an
hour after Angina Seng had squirmed her way out, he went off to look for
somewhere quiet. She had soured it for him. He couldn't imagine who might want
him for himself and not My Ella Speed.
As he went out the door, Tiny and his drummer were exchanging strokes, playing