"Niven, Larry - Smut Talk" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Only a little."
"But too many for host. Rick Schumann would die. Kill host - is that intelligent?"
The voice in my mind asked, "Fool, do you expect intelligence to stop an entity from breeding?" I thought that was a funny remark, so I whispered, "Ask any elected official."
Gail said, "Rick, the chirp liner is still near the moon. The point was to get all the tourists into closed-cycle life support and not start a panic on Earth. ThereТs a sapient microscopic life-form loose. This rogue Wahartht has been leaning over our drinks with his breather on, distributing the bacterium as a powder form. Normally, it spreads as a, urn, a social disease. Under proper circumstances it is a civilized entity, not especially trustworthy, but it can be held to contacts. But as a disease it could ravage the Earth."
I could barely blink.
"We can make treaties with sapient clusters of the bacteria. That's you. Some species can't tolerate it at all, and some clusters won't negotiate. Some aliens won't volunteer as carriers, either Herman and me, we would have. Hell, we're grad students! But there wasn't time. They rushed us to Medical and shot us full of sulfa drugs."
Sfillirrath had gone on talking. "There is a chemical approach to halt your cell division. Antibiotics would kill you entirely, as they have killed your other colonies. Which will you have?"
I felt terror from both sides of my mind. "If my operators do not fission, still they die. When the numbers drop enough, I am gone. You would make me mortal!"
"Give you empathy with your host."
"Monster, pervert! What would you know of empathy? I will accept the contraceptive."
"You must buy it," Sfillirrath said coolly. "This first dose is our gift."
"Jehaneh, give him the first shot."
"Two boosters to come, else the sulfa drugs. We will discuss terms."
Jehaneh pulled down my belt and pushed a hypodermic needle into the gluteal muscle. I barely felt the sting.
I listened to Sfillirrath's terms, and agreed to them. They included measures for the health of my host. My host was to be treated for arthritis, cholesterol build-up, distorted eyesight, a knee injury and flawed teeth. I was not to make colonies without permission of a willing host.
Jehaneh offered herself as a host, under rigidly defined conditions, and I agreed to those terms. Xenologists of many species would interview me periodically.
I was feeling more lucid. When I could stand, they took me to Medical.
~~~~~
Morning. I lay on a flat plate with a sensor array above me. I'd never seen the Draco Tavern medical facility from this viewpoint.I felt wonderful. Rolled out of bed and did a handstand, something I hadn't done in some time.
Jehaneh caught me at it. "I'm glad to see you're up to exercise," she said, "What do you remember?"
"First flu, then invasion, now it's an embassy. Jehaneh, I hear it. It's thinking with my brain. I think it has the hots for you, but that could just be me.
"We agreed that I'll take a colony from you. Remember?"
"No. That sounds risky! Jehaneh, it would be like being an ambassador to, well, Iraq."
"They do build embassies in Iraq," she said, "and this is a star-travelling intelligence. What might I learn?"
"Huh. Your choice. And it'll fix─" I was remembering more of the negotiations. "I thought I was in pretty good health, but it wants to do a lot of fixing. To show how useful it can be. You're the brain it really wants."
"Do you recall that it's a sexually transmitted, urn, entity?"
I did. I leered.
She paused, then asked, "We've both had the usual blood tests, yes? Our guest would fix that anyway. Do you have room for me here? Just until I can get infected." She didn't like that word. "Colonized," she amended herself.
"Positively. Maybe I can talk you into staying longer My bed has one or two unearthly entertainment features. And if 100 breeds of alien are going to be interviewing your guest, well, the Draco Tavern has the best communication and life support systems on Earth."
She smiled. "We'll see."