"Bc07" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

Beowulf's Children
Chapter 7

THE MAINLAND

Its horror and its beauty are divine.
-PERCY BYSSHE SHELLY, The "Medusa" of Leonardo da Vinci

"Can we talk?"
Linda looked up with faint annoyance. Linda had learned what all mothers learn. Sleep when the baby sleeps, stupid! She'd just got Cadzie down for a nap.
"Please."
Edgar looked desperate. Joe had been worried about him lately, worried that Edgar had problems he wouldn't talk about. Joe would want to know. She sighed and pointed to the sleeping baby. "In your work room, then. Cassie, Cadzie is asleep. Listen for Cadzie. We will be in Edgar's workroom. Call if he wakes up."
"Understood, Linda," Cassandra said softly.
Edgar led the way. "Coffee?"
"Sure, thanks," she said. "I like coffee and I never get a chance to go pick beans."
Edgar gave her an evil grin. "There's one way you can get all the coffee you ever want."
"I used to do that," she said.
"Hey, I didn't mean anything."
"All right." She sipped coffee. "I do like this stuff. Okay, Edgar, what's so urgent it can't wait for me to get a nap while Cadzie's asleep?"
"Why don't I get laid?"
"What?"
He couldn't meet her eyes now. "It's hard enough asking once, let alone twice. Why can't I get laid? I must be the oldest virgin on this planet."
"You're not a virgin. You're a Grendel Scout. I was there. Trish Chance, the Bottle Baby."
"Close enough," Edgar said. "There was that once on the mainland. I didn't know what to do. Trish had to show me, and she hardly speaks to me now."
"Why ask me?"
He sighed and shook his head. "There was a time when I'd have given anything I had to sleep with you. You know that."
She struggled to avoid laughing, and lost. "I'm sorry," she giggled. "But Edgar, I never knew--"
"You knew," he said. "Come on, I don't know much about girls, but anybody could tell you were keeping score, making sure that anybody you hadn't made it with sure wanted to. You--unless I'm psychotic. Linda?"
"All right, I suppose I did," Linda said. "And then one morning I woke up tired of the games."
Edgar nodded, relaxing a little. "You slept with damn near everybody! Everybody but me. I figured what the hell, eventually you'd get to me just for the record. But you never did. I guess you got pregnant first."
"Pregnant and tired," Linda said.
"So I'd wait till you had the baby, and then I'd have a chance, but that didn't work because now you're my stepmother! Near enough, anyway."
Tired, and pregnant, and lonely, which didn't make sense because I could have awakened with anyone I wanted, but--"Let's just say I had a lot of friends."
If he'd been a dog, Edgar's tail would have wagged. "I've read a bunch of different names that people used to use. Hooker. Town pump. Round heels."
"Round heels?"
He laughed. "Falls over easily on her back. And hooker, I read about that one. There was a Union general. Fighting Joe Hooker, who had so many shady ladies following him that people called them Hooker's battalion--"
"Thank you for the lecture, but that's quite enough." She stopped, and thought for a moment. "But come to think of it, Joe knows those words, too. He'd never use them, but he knows them."
"Yeah, Wow, I never would have thought of that. Has he--?"
"Never."
"Anyway, it never happened with us. Or anyone. It's that way with all the girls. Some of them are friends, but none of them want to sleep with me, and it's driving me nuts. Why?"
"You're too eager, for starts," Linda said. "And you have a talent for lecturing on the wrong subjects."
"I tried being hard to get. That doesn't work either."
"No, of course not. I mean--"
He looked down at himself with a sour expression. "Yeah. I know what you mean."
"Then why ask?"
Edgar looked at himself. "I'm fat. I've been taking lessons from Toshiro--"
"It shows," Linda said. "More muscle tone. Better posture. Lose some weight and you'll look good. Edgar, I'd sleep with you now. I mean, I won't, but I would if I were doing that sort of thing now."
"You mean that?"
" . . . Yes."
"You sound surprised."