"Heinlein, Robert A - To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

'I beg your pardon?'

'I am about to set fire to the drapes?

'You're wasting your time; those drapes are fireproof. But your threat has been recorded. Under the Rooming House Act, section seven dee -'

'Get this dead man out of here!'

'Please hold. I'll connect you with the head porter.'

'You do and I'll shoot him as he comes through the door. I bite. I scratch. I'm foaming at the mouth. I haven't had my shots.'

'Madam, please contain yourself. We pride ourselves on -'

'And then I'll come down to your office and find you, Mister monster Munster, and pull you out of your chair and sit down in it myself and turn you over my knee and take your pants down and... Did I mention that I am from Hercules Gamma? Two and a half gravities surface acceleration; we eat your sort for lunch. So stay where you are; don't make me have to hunt for you.'

'Madam, I regret that I must tell you that you cannot sit in my chair.'

'Want to bet?'

'I do not Nave a chair; I am securely bolted to the floor. And now I must bid you good day and turn you over to our security force. You will find the additional charges on your statement of account. Enjoy your stay with us.'

They showed up too quickly; I was still eyeing those fireproof drapes, wondering if I could do as well with them as Scarlet O'Hara had with the drapes at Tara, or could I arrange a simple toga, like Eunice in The Last Days of Pompeii (or was she in Quo Vadis?), when they arrived: a house doc, a house dick, and a house ape, the last with a cart. Several more oddments crowded in after them, until we had enough to choose sides.

I need not have worried about being naked; no one seemed to notice... which irked me. Gentlemen should at least leer. And a wolf whistle or other applause would not be out of place. Anything less makes a woman feel unsure of herself.

(Perhaps I am too sensitive. But since my sesquicentennial I have been disposed to check the mirror each morning, wondering.)

There was only one woman in this mob of intruders. She looked at me and sniffed, which made me feel better.

Then I recalled something. When I was twelve, my father told me that I was going to have lots of trouble with men. I said, `Father, you are out of your veering mind. I'm not pretty. The boys don't even throw snowballs at me.'

'A little respect, please. No, you aren't pretty. It's the way you smell, my darling daughter. You are going to have to bathe oftener . . . or some warm night you will wind up raped and murdered.'

'Why, I bathe every week! You know I do.'

'In your case, that's not enough. Mark my words.'

I did mark his words and learned that Father knew what he was talking about. My body odour when I'm well and happy is much like that of a cat in heat. But today I was not happy. First that dead man scared me and then those bleeping machines made me angry... which adds up to a different sort of stink. A tabby cat not in heat can walk right through a caucus of toms and they will ignore her. As I was being ignored.

They stripped the top sheet off my erstwhile bedmate. The house physician looked over the cadaver without touching it, then looked more closely at that horrid red puddle - leant down, sniffed it, then made my skin crawl by dipping a finger into the slop and tasting it.

'Try it, Adolf. See what you think.'

His colleague (I assumed that he was another physician) also tasted the bloody mess. `Heinz.'

`No. Skinner's.'

`With all due respect, Dr. Ridpath, you have ruined your palate with that cheap gin you guzzle. Heinz. Skinner's catsup has more salt. Which kills the delicate tomato flavour. Which you can't taste, because of your evil habits.'