"Robert A Heinlein - The Number of the Beast v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

"Oh, dear! Pop will be really mad. Please? Please, sir!"
"You said that you had used 'mad' in ambivalent mode. How?"
"Oh. Mad-angry because his colleagues won't listen to him. Mad-psychotic in the opinions of some colleagues. They say his papers don't make sense."
"Do they make sense?"
"I'm not that good a mathematician, sir. My work is usually simplifying software. Child's play compared with n-dimensional spaces."
I wasn't required to express an opinion; the trio started Blue Tango, Deety melted into my arms. You don't talk if you know tango.
Deety knew. After an eternity of sensual bliss, I swung her out into position precisely on coda; she answered my bow and scrape with a deep curtsy. "Thank you, sir."
"Whew! After a tango like that the couple ought to get married."
"All right. I'll find our hostess and tell Pop. Five minutes? Front door, or side?"
She looked serenely happy. I said, "Deety, do you mean what you appear to mean? That you intend to marry me? A total stranger?"
Her face remained calm but the light went out-and her nipples went down. She answered steadily. "After that tango we are no longer strangers. I construed your statement as a proposal-no, a willingness-to marry me. Was I mistaken?"
My mind went into emergency, reviewing the past years the way a dr9wning man's life is supposed to flash before his eyes (how could anyone know that?):
a rainy afternoon when my chum's older sister had initiated me into the mysteries; the curious effect caused by the first time strangers had shot back at me; a twelve-month cohabitation contract that had started with a bang and had ended without a whimper; countless events which had left me determined never to marry.
I answered instantly, "I meant what I implied-marriage, in its older meaning. I'm willing. But why are you willing? I'm no prize."
She took a deep breath, straining the fabric, and-thank Allah!-her nipples came up. "Sir, you are the prize I was sent to fetch, and, when you said that we really ought to get married-hyperbole and I knew it-I suddenly realized, with a deep burst of happiness, that this was the means of fetching you that I wanted above all!"
She went on, "But I will not trap you through misconstruing a gallantry. If you wish, you may take me into those bushes back of the pool. . . and not
marry me." She went on firmly, 'But for that . . . whoring. . . my fee is for you to talk with my father and to let him show you something."
"Deety, you're an idiot! You would ruin that pretty gown."
"Mussing a dress is irrelevant but I can take it off. I will. There's nothing under it."
"There's a great deal under it!"
That fetched a grin, instantly wiped away. "Thank you. Shall we head for the bushes?"
"Wait a halfl I'm about to be noble and regret it the rest of my life. You've made a mistake. Your father doesn't want to talk to me; I don't know anything about n-dimensional geometry." (Why do I get these attacks of honesty? I've never done anything to deserve them.)
"Pop thinks you do; that is sufficient. Shall we go? I want to get Pop out of here before he busts somebody in the mouth."
"Don't rush me; I didn't ask you to rassle on the grass; I said I wanted to marry you-but wanted to know why you were willing to marry me. Your answer concerned what your father wants. I'm not trying to marry your father; he's not my type. Speak for yourself, Deety. Or drop it." (Am I a masochist? There's a sunbathing couch back of those bushes.)
Solemnly she looked me over, from my formal tights to my crooked bow tie and on up to my thinning brush cut-a hundred and ninety-four centimeters of big ugly galoot. "I like your firm lead in dancing. I like the way you look. I like the way your voice rumbles. I like your hair-splitting games with words- you sound like Whorf debating Korzybski with Shannon as referee." She took another deep breath, finished almost sadly: "Most of all, I like the way you smell."
It would have taken a sharp nose to whiff me. I had been squeaky clean ninety minutes earlier, and it takes more than one waltz and a tango to make me sweat. But her remark had that skid in it that Deety put into almost anything. Most girls, when they want to ruin a man's judgment, squeeze his biceps and say, "Goodness, you're strong!"
I grinned down at her. "You smell good too. Your perfume could rouse a corpse."
"I'm not wearing perfume."
"Oh. Correction: your natural pheromone. Enchanting. Get your wrap, Side door. Five minutes."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell your father we're getting married. He gets that talk, free. I decided that before you started to argue. It won't take him long to decide that I'm not Lobachevski."
"That's Pop's problem," she answered, moving. "Will you let him show you this thing he's built in our basement?"
'Sure, why not? What is it?"
"A time machine."


II

"This Universe never did make sense-"



Zeb:
Tomorrow I will seven eagles see, a great comet will appear, and voices will speak from whirlwinds foretelling monstrous and fearful things- This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract.
'Big basement?"
Medium. Nine by twelve. But cluttered. Work benches and power tools."
A hundred and eight square meters- Ceiling height probably two and a half- Had Pop made the mistake of the man who built a boat in his basement?
Mv musing was interrupted by a male voice in a high scream: 'You Overeducated, obstipated, pedantic ignoramus! Your mathematical inluition froze solid the day you matriculated"
I didn't recognize the screamer but did know the stuffed shirt he addressed:
Professor Neil O'Heret Brain, head of the department of mathematics-and God help the student who addressed a note to "Professor N.O. Brain" or even "N. O'H. Brain." "Brainy" had spent his life in search of The Truth-intendinng to place it under house arrest.