"Nancy Kress - Borovsky's Hollow Woman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)
"You can tell me that's not fair either."
"So what do I do?"
"Starters," Weinblatt said, and shoved a silver, octagonal token across the scarred plastic tabletop.
Laura's eyes followed the token across the bench. Embossed on the exposed face was a stylized spiral
galaxy and the words BERENICE'S CLUSTER.
"Silver lay, Mik. Anything you want. This one is on me. It's my treat."
After an incredulous moment, Laura snapped her attention from Weinblatt's token to Borovsky's face.
Her man - her man - looked as impassive as ever. But Laura, who knew the meaning of every twitch in
that unlovely face, saw in Borovsky's eyes a complex reaction: resentment and distaste and - yes -
interest. The room lurched slightly, and Laura thought something had gone sour in her F level, but then
realized she was discovering something new in the bright, innermost level she knew as her soul. If
Borovsky-
"No thanks," Borovsky was saying. He lowered his eyes to stare at the silver token. "Whorehouses
give me the creeps."
"Be honest, Mik. Are you queer?"
"No!"
Several of the other men nearby looked toward Borovsky; seeing Weinblatt's warning glare, they
quickly looked away.
"I can't afford it," Borovsky said, and in his voice Laura heard the same thing she had seen in his
eyes: He resented being told what to do; he was determined to resist; he felt scorn for the human
pressure to fit in, but he was interested.
"Maybe not a silver," Weinblatt said, "but a purple quickie once a week won't break you. I know."
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...Nancy%20Kress%20-%20Borovsky's%20Hollow%20Woman.txt (9 of 19)23-2-2006 22:39:23
Borovsky nodded. The Combine always knew, to the penny, every employee's assets, debts, and
expenses. Borovsky's excuse had been a poor one. Was he trying to save face in offering resistance so
easily wrestled down? Laura longed to have Borovsky look at her, but his gaze remained on the silver
token. It was Weinblatt, in profile to Laura, who seemed for a moment to flick a sidelong glance at the
suits against the wall. Desolation swept through her F layer. If Borovsky - Borovsky, her man-
"I've never been there before," Borovsky said.
Weinblatt stood. "I'll take you. I could use a good time myself about now."
And Borovsky was standing up. Borovsky was reaching for her. Borovsky, still not meeting her many
sets of eyes, was wriggling into her ventral cavity, into her boots. He said nothing. And Laura, sure now
that the universe was steady and the lurching continued only in her soul, could say nothing either.
"Let's go," Weinblatt said.
Both ports were cast wide at Berenice's Cluster, up on E Minus Four. Loud, raucous music echoed
out through the lock. Borovsky hesitated a moment.
"Come on, Mik. Relax."
Laura felt Borovsky suck in his breath, and they entered. Inside it was very crowded, a random
tessellation of polygonal waterbeds illuminated from beneath by changing, multicolored lights. On each
bed lay a woman, some naked, many draped in shimmering cloth. More than a dozen men stood among
the beds, reading the fee schedules and counting dollars in their heads and on their fingers. Down among
their feet surged a heavy, bluish smoke, stirred into sluggish vortices as the men stepped along the
narrow ways between the waterbeds.
Weinblatt doffed his rubber suit quickly, Borovsky much more slowly. A blonde on a nearby bed
smiled at him, then drew aside the drapery suspended from cords braided around her neck. She had large
breasts to which the heavy swing of E Minus Four had not been kind. Cupping a hand under one breast,
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