"Paxson, Diana L - The Dancer of Chimaera" - читать интересную книгу автора (Paxson Diana L)

The Dancer of Chimaera
by Diana L. Paxson

They called her Mariposa, and she danced in a tavern on Chimaera Station. She was scarcely a woman yet, but she was female enough for the men who did their drinking at the High Orbit. They were Space Forcers on shore leave mostly, or techs from the defense project that was the main reason the Station was there. In the evenings they drank, and watched Mariposa, and tried to forget the war.

Johnny Yaleran wavered in the doorway. The heat of the tavern reminded him of the generator room of the Glinka, though the sour smell of spilled beer and the mixed reeks of tobacco and weed were richer than the high ozone air he'd been breathing since he left home. He bent forward, peering through the gloom.

A bunch of big techs from the repair docks heading for the door were enough to make up his mind for him. They drew him in their wake toward the bar. Even then he might have retreated, but there was an empty place, and he slid into it, trying to look as if he belonged there. Beyond the bar was a small bare stage and a musician's stand. But the synthetor's lights were dead and canned music strove unsuccessfully with the patrons' din. The man in the stained coveralls on the next perch slurped noisily at his drink and set it down, turning to the thin fellow beside him. "Well, I say we've nothin' to worry about-" Johnny heard him snort. "The Shifters will never get this far, and if they do, we'll implode 'em." He drank again and wiped his mouth with a beefy hand. "Think so? They've taken the Iberian system, and Lutece, Lord knows how. The project's a prime target..." The thin man stopped, looking at Johnny. There was a loud cough and Johnny flushed, realizing that the barman was waiting, order disk in hand. There was a list on the wall before him, and Johnny chose at random. "... one double Red, straight," the barman repeated, punching the order and waiting impassively while Johnny fumbled in his pouch for his credit chip. "Thank you," Johnny said. The man smiled automatically and went off. "You new here?" the big man asked, and Johnny nodded. "Thought so-" He grinned suddenly and extended a hand. "I'm Hank Mendos, Tonics Tech, and this here's my buddy Duprey." Johnny introduced himself, and the thin man beside Mendos nodded. "Glinka, you say? She hasn't seen combat yet, has she?"

"Neither have I," Johnny confessed. "I signed on when she was commissioned on Soyuz." The barman set a glass of crimson liquid before him. Johnny picked it up, aware of their eyes upon him, but the fluid slid easily down his throat. As he took a second sip, the first exploded in his belly. Their expressions had warned him, but he was still gasping a few moments later when the nova inside him began to die down. Carefully, he drank again. Duprey smiled with approval-or perhaps it was amusement. "I wish you luck. Of course, the Shifters' weapons are no match for ours--not their physical weapons, anyhow-" He leaned forward, lowering his voice so that Johnny had to strain to hear. "I'm in Communications, and I've heard the log of the Tonnerre."

Johnny stared, remembering the hulk whose orbit they had crossed on their way in. Duprey went on.

"They had picked up a bunch of refugees, and they were all having a concert to cheer them up, see, when it began. There's not much on the disc-just ramblings about the music, and then the sound of the explosion when they hit the asteroid." Duprey sighed.

"What was the music like?" Johnny asked.

"There was no music on the discs," said Duprey. "No music at all-"

"You think one of them refugees was a Shifter?" said Mendos.

"Must have been ... they must have forgotten to run the test when they took them on."

Johnny shivered, but Mendos was looking past him to the stage. "Well, now, I guess it's time for the show!" He grinned.

The lights of the synthetor were beginning to glow. The operator, only one in a place like this, hunched over the control board, adjusting the dials. Beside him a sleepy-eyed drummer stroked the plastic of his drumhead. From the signs outside, Johnny gathered they were very proud of having a real drum.

The noise diminished slightly and the synthetor chimed once, projecting a pink glow onto the stage. A fat man in a stained purple tunic waved his arms for silence.

"And now-we bring you the star of the Galaxy-La Mariposa!"

The light intensified from pink to purple, then back to red as the drummer took up a slow beat. Johnny leaned forward as the screen shimmered and a girl slipped through it onto the stage.

"She ain't much," said Mendos, "but it don't seem anyone else wants to come out here so close to the war, and she's kinda cute, after all."

For a moment the girl hesitated, flinching as all the male eyes focused upon her face. The drum boomed again and she stepped forward, stretching out her arms so that the flashers on her cloak glittered red. The synthetor began to burble out a tune and she waved her arms aimlessly, swaying back and forth in time to the music. "You've left me all alone, what can I do? There's no one in the galaxy like you..." she sang in a thin sweet voice, still swaying. Johnny recognized the song. It had been popular just before he left home. The lights changed from red to yellow, to green and blue, while the predictable words trudged on. "... unless you give me all your love I'll die!" She let her arms/drop to her sides. "Come on, honey, take it off-that's a girl!" came a shout from the back of the room. The drum rolled demandingly. The girl stretched her colored lips in a smile and her hands moved to the fastenings at the neck of her cloak. Slowly she undid them. The cloth slithered to the floor and she kicked it aside. Her skinny body was covered mainly by body film, red on one side, silver on the other, with interlocking spirals where the two colors joined. Johnny took an involuntary swallow of his drink. They didn't have anything like this on Soyuz. Mariposa walked around the stage, throwing her hips sharply from side to side so that the orfa feathers on her girdle fluttered, hipbones alternately defined under the colored skin. Her little breasts bobbled and the tiny stars glued to them winked at Johnny as she turned. The barman was asking if he wanted another drink. Johnny pulled out his credit slip without taking his eyes from the stage. The drummer had stepped up the beat. The dancer began to stamp and fling her arms about concluding with a backbend that threw all her ribs into relief. The music slowed. Johnny took his new drink, swallowed part of it, and set the bulb down. The girl straightened and struck a stylized pose. Johnny noted with strange clarity that some of her hair had escaped from its topknot and clung damply to her neck. She made a vague gesture with her slender hands and quavered out another verse of her song. "Poor kid-she don't hardly know what it's all about, does she?" said Mendos. "Now I remember the girls on Bagatelle-you ever go to Madam Sue's, Duprey? There was one bitty there who had breasts like ..." He searched for words and gave up with a lush movement of his hands.

Duprey shook his head, sighing. "No ... but I knew a little girl on Sianna once. She had hair like black silk that reached to her knees ..." He broke off, staring into shadow, remembering.

Johnny scarcely heard them. He was watching Mariposa.

Johnny reached out for the girl's hand as they began to walk. Their footsteps echoed on the permacrete of the pedway, almost deserted at this hour. They turned a corner and the pink blaze of the High Orbit's entrance was hidden. Mariposa breathed deeply.

"Thank you for coming with me, Johnny."

He squeezed her hand, still too astonished at the privilege to reply. For the past month, he had been off-duty two nights a week, and he had spent every one of them at the High Orbit, watching Mariposa dance. It had taken a week for him to get up the courage to speak to her, two weeks more before she would let him buy her a drink when the show was done. And tonight she had asked him if he would like to walk her home.

He knew that Mendos and Duprey thought his passion funny, knew that not a man on the Station would have hurt Mariposa, but he could not help feeling the way he had when he stood watch over the generators of the Glinka alone for the first time. He breathed a little faster and pressed her hand again.

"It is good to be quiet at last," she said. "I wish I could see the stars."