"Andrew J. Offutt - Spaceways 09 - In Quest of Qalara" - читать интересную книгу автора (Offutt Andrew J)

mutual need, pumping and panting, biting her lip, moaning with the joy of it.
So was he, now, working toward an explosion. 58 They lunged and plunged at
each other while the ship plunged through the parsec abyss. Spaceship Satana
in dull orange and pink, a streak whose 0.19 albedo must have been raised a
point by the glow in its con-cabin where the temperature rose along with the
smell of sexuality and the noise level and rapidity of movement. 4 Jaded?
Bored? want ADVENTURE? Try the Chateau a'If. -Jack Vance Kislar Jonuta came
smiling out of Hakimit Medical Center on his own planet of Qalara wearing a
small smile and a loosely cut white suit indifferently enhanced with touches
of nothing-beige. The suit bagged on him and somehow made him look shorter, as
well as considerably less imposing. That was deliberate; his intention was to
make himself overlookable in a crowd of three. The soft white cap, worn
without style or panache, added to that effect. The v-topped tunic's plainness
was broken only by the beige touches and by the strap-beige webbing-that ran
across his chest and back to his right hip. It supported an ordinary eyecorder
case there. A beige case. There was no eyecorder and no case. The
holoprojection disguised his holstered stopper. A prominent citizen of
Norcross and indeed of the rest of the planet of which Norcross was capital,
Jonuta was licensed to carry concealed or disguised armament. He had just
visited with Fumiko Kita-daktari and one of her assistants, inspected himself
and the monitors, and passed on another million memories. They were
electroni- 59 60 cally recorded, like stellar purchasing units in the bank
vault of Hakimit's holographic store-against-need-for-recall systemry. Jonuta,
who had read long-ago writings that few others had so much as heard of, smiled
a small smile. Hakimit Med center indeed! he mused. Chateau d'lf, this
place! He stood politely back for other pedestrians, ignoring the glidewalk
until he could step over and pace along beside it. How stupid to use only
lifts and glideways and transportation and neglect the legs that needed
work! Since some others were as sensible and many were dressed in white, his
walking in preference to being conveyed while standing was hardly noticed.
Already he was thinking about matters neither literary, medical, nor genetic.
His thoughts did involve Fumiko Kita-daktari. He could hardly wait until
dinner, to see how Miko and HReenee got on and behaved in each other's
company. Would HReenee feel challenged and try to be possessive, display a
proprietary attitude? Would the two women compete? He hoped not. His and Miko
Kita's relationship had long ago passed beyond the purely professional, on
those few occasions when he visited Qalara openly and the fewer ones when he
came here secretly. Last time she had shown her fascination with another
concept. Discussion of it was brief, and he and she and Kenowa had quietly
agreed to enter into that concept. They were just about to get together in
Miko's nice bed in her nice home forty kloms and less than six minutes from
Norcross, when an emergency called her back to HMC. Surely it had been
intended as a hint, her mention a few minutes ago of her
theory-unto-assumption that all persons were born bisexual and were intended
to function so. Now we'll see about bisexual and biracial, he
thought, 61 curbing his smile as he stepped into the public transport
depot. Then he tried to put that out of his mind, settling back to be rushed
into the center of Norcross. He let his mind wander to a remark made long ago,
about his being "Captain Cautious" with a back-up everything except a back-up
Jonuta. Unfortunately that reminded him that it was Kenowa who had put that