"Larry Niven - Death by Ecstasy UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

УItТs a small room,Ф said Ordaz, Уbut not too small. Millions of people live this way. In any case, a Belter would hardly be a claustrophobe.Ф
УNo. Owen flew a singleship before he joined us. Three months at a stretch, in a cabin so small you couldnТt stand up with the airlock closed. Not claustrophobia, butЧФ I swept my arm about the room. УWhat do you see thatТs his?Ф
Small as it was, the closet was nearly empty. A set of street clothes, a paper shirt, a pair of shoes, a small brown overnight case. All new. The few items in the bathroom medicine chest had been equally new and equally anonymous.
Ordaz said, УWell?Ф
УBelters are transients. They donТt own much, but what they do own, they guard. Small possessions, relics, souvenirs. I canТt be.. lieve he wouldnТt have had something.Ф
Ordaz lifted an eyebrow. УHis space suit?Ф
УYou think thatТs unlikely? ItТs not. The inside of his pressure suit is a BelierТs home. Sometimes itТs the only home heТs got. He spends a fortune decorating it. If he loses his suit, heТs not a Belter any more.
УNo, I donТt insist heТd have brought his suit. But heТd have had something. His phial of marsdust. The bit of nickel-iron they took out of his chest. Or, if he left all his souvenirs home, heТd have picked up things on Earth. But in this roomЧthereТs nothing.Ф
УPerhaps,Ф Ordaz suggested delicately, Уhe didnТt notice his surroundings.Ф
And somehow that brought it all home.
Owen Jennison sat grinning in a water-stained silk dressing gown. His space-darkened face lightened abruptly beneath his chin, giving way to normal suntan. His blond hair, too long, had been cut Earth style; no trace remained of the Belter strip cut heТd worn all his life. A monthТs growth of untended beard covered half his face. A small black cylinder protruded from the top of his head. An electric cord trailed from the top of the cylinder and ran to a small wall socket.
The cylinder was a droud, a current addictТs transformer.
I stepped closer to the corpse and bent to look. The droud was a standard make, but it had been altered. Your standard current addictТs droud will pass only a trickle of current into the brain.
Owen must have been getting ten times the usual charge, easily enough to damage his brain in a monthТs time.
I reached out and touched the droud with my imaginery hand. Ordaz was standing quietly beside me, letting me make my
examination without interruption. Naturally he had no way of knowing about my restricted psi powers.
Restricted was the operative word. I had two psychic powers:
telekinesis and esper. With the esper sense I could sense the shapes of objects at a distance; but the distance was the reach of an extra right arm. I could lift small objects, if they were no further away than the fingertips of an imaginary right hand. The restriction was a flaw in my own imagination. Since I could not believe my imaginary hand would reach further than that. . . it wouldnТt.
Even so limited a psi power can be useful. With my imaginary fingertips I touched the droud in OwenТs head, then ran them down to a tiny hole in his scalp, and further.
It was a standard surgical job. Owen could have had it done anywhere. A hole in his scalp, invisible under the hair, nearly im~ possible to find even if you knew what you were looking for. Even your best friends wouldnТt know, unless they caught you with the droud plugged in. But the tiny hole marked a bigger plug set in the bone of the skull. I touched the ecstasy plug with my imaginary fingertips, then ran them down the hair-fine wire going deep into OwenТs brain, down into the pleasure center.
No, the extra current hadnТt killed him. What had killed Owen was his lack of wifi power. He had been unwilling to get up.
He had starved to death sitting in that chair. There were plastic squeezebottles all around his feet and a couple still on the end table. All empty. They must have been full a month ago. Owen hadnТt died of thirst. He had died of starvation, and his death had been planned.
Owen, my crewmate. Why hadnТt he come to me? Fm half a Belter myself. Whatever his trouble, IТd have gotten him out somehow. A little smugglingЧwhat of it? Why had he arranged to tell me only after it was over?
The apartment was so clean, so clean. You had to bend close to smell the death; the air conditioning whisked it all away.
HeТd been very methodical. The kitchen was open so that a catheter could lead from Owen to the sink. HeТd given himself enough water to last out the month; heТd paid his rent a month in
advance. HeТd cut the droud cord by hand, and heТd cut it short deliberately tethering himself to a wall socket beyond reach of the kitchen.
A complex way to die, but rewarding in its way. A month of ecstasy, a month of the highest physical pleasure man can attain. I could imagine him giggling every time he remembered he was starving to death. With food only a few footsteps away . . . but heТd have to pull out the droud to reach it. Perhaps he postponed the decision, and postponed it again. .
Owen and I and Homer Chandrasekhar, we had lived for three years in a cramped shell surrounded by vacuum. What was there to know about Owen Jennison that I hadnТt known? Where was the weakness we did not share? If Owen had done this, so could I. And I was afraid.
УVery neat,Ф I whispered. УBelter neat.Ф
УTypically Belter, would you say?Ф
УI would not. Belters donТt commit suicide. Certainly not this way. If a Belter had to go, heТd blow his shipТs drive and die like a star. The neatness is typical. The result isnТt.Ф
УWell,Ф said Ordaz. УWell.Ф He was uncpmfortable. The facts spoke for themselves, yet he was reluctant to call me a liar. He fell back on formality.
УMr. Hamilton, do you identify this man as Owen Jennison?Ф
УItТs him.Ф HeТd always been a touch overweight, yet IТd recognized him the moment I saw him. УBut letТs be sure.Ф IТd pulled the dirty dressing gown back from OwenТs shoulder. A nearperfect circle of scar tissue, eight inches across, spread over the left side of his chest. УSee that?Ф
УWe noticed it, yes. An old burn?Ф
УOwenТs the only man I know who could show you a meteor scar on his skin. It blasted him in the shoulder one day while he was outside the ship. Sprayed vaporized pressure-suit steel all over his skin. The doc pulled a tiny grain of nickel-iron from the center of the scar, just below the skin. Owen always carried that grain of nickel-iron. Always,Ф I said, looking at Ordaz.
УWe didnТt find it.Ф
УOkay.Ф
УIТm sorry to put you through this, Mr. Hamilton. It was you who insisted we leave the body in situ.Ф
УYes. Thank you.Ф
Owen grinned at me from the reading chair. I felt the pain, in my throat and in the pit of my stomach. Once I had lost my right arm. Losing Owen felt the same way.
УIТd like to know more about this,Ф I said. УWill you let me know the details as soon as you get them?Ф
УOf course. Through the ARMТs office?Ф
УYes.Ф This wasnТt ARMТs business, despite what IТd told Ordaz, but ARMТs prestige would help. УI want to know why Owen died. Maybe he just cracked up. . . culture shock or something. But if someone hounded him to death, IТll have his blood.Ф
УSurely the administration of justice is better left toЧФ Ordaz stopped, confused. Did I speak as an ARM or as a citizen?
I left him wondering.
The lobby held a scattering of tenants entering and leaving elevators or just sitting around. I stood outside the elevator for a moment, searching passing faces for the erosion of personality that must be there.
Mass-produced comfort. Room to sleep and eat and watch tridee, but no room to be anyone. Living here, one would own nothing. What kind of people would live like that? They should have looked all alike, moved in unison, like the string of images in a barberТs mirrors.
Then I spotted wavy brown hair and a dark red paper suit. The manager? I had to get close before I was sure. His face was the face of a permanent stranger.
He saw me coming and smiled without enthusiasm. УOh, hello, Mr. . . . uh . . . Did you find . . .У He couldnТt think of the right question.