"Lafferty, R A - Nine Hundred Grandmothers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

Nine Hundred Grandmothers
by R. A. Lafferty


1

Ceran Swicegood was a promising young Special Aspects Man. But,
like all Special Aspects, he had one irritating habit. He was forever
asking the questions: How Did It All Begin?

They all had tough names except Ceran. Manbreaker Crag, Heave
Huckle, Blast Berg, George Blood, Move Manion (when Move says
"Move," you move), Trouble Trent. They were supposed to be tough,
and they had taken tough names at the naming. Only Ceran kept his
own-to the disgust of his commander, Manbreaker.

"Nobody can be a hero with a name like Ceran Swicegood!"
Manbreaker would thunder. "Why don't you take Storm Shannon?
That's good. Or Gutboy Barrelhouse or Slash Slagle or Nevel Knife?
You barely glanced at the suggested list."

"I'll keep my own," Ceran always said, and this is where he made his
mistake. A new name will sometimes bring out a new personality. It
had done so for George Blood. Though the hair on George's chest was a
graft job, yet that and his new name had turned him from a boy into a
man. Had Ceran assumed the heroic name of Gutboy Barrelhouse he
might have been capable of rousing endeavors and man-sized angers
rather than his tittering indecisions and flouncy furies.

They were down on the big asteroid Proavitus-a sphere that almost
tinkled with the potential profit that might be shaken out of it. And the
tough men of the Expedition knew their business. They signed big
contracts on the native velvet-like bark scrolls and on their own parallel
tapes. They impressed, inveigled, and somewhat cowed the slight
people of Proavitus. Here was a solid two-way market, enough to make
them slaver. And there was a whole world of oddities that could lend
themselves to the luxury trade.

"Everybody's hit it big but you," Manbreaker crackled in kindly thunder
to Ceran after three days there. "But even Special Aspects is supposed
to pay its way. Our charter compels us to carry one of your sort to give
us a cultural twist to the thing, but it needn't be restricted to that. What
we go out for every time, Ceran, is to cut a big fat hog in the rump-we
make no secret of that. But if the hog's tail can be shown to have a
cultural twist to it, that will solve a requirement. And if that twist in the
tail can turn us a profit, then we become mighty happy about the whole
thing. Have you been able to find out anything about the living dolls,
for instance? They might have both a cultural aspect and a market
value."