"Christopher Priest - The Discharge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Priest Christopher)

The news circulated around us faster than the speed of sound. The ship was soon to leave its mooring
outside the harbor and dock against the quay. We would have thirty-six hours ashore. I cheered with the
others. I yearned to find my past and lose my innocence in Muriseay.

Four thousand men were released and we hurried ashore. Most of them rushed into Muriseay Town in
search of whores.

I rushed along with them, in quest of Acizzone.



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Instead, I too found only whores.

There in the dock area, after a fruitless quest that sent me dashing through the streets to find Acizzone's
beautiful Muriseayan women, I finished up in a dancing club. I was unready for Muriseay, had no idea of
how to find what I was seeking. I roamed about the remoter quarters of the town, lost in narrow streets,
shunned by the people who lived there. They saw only my uniform. I was soon footsore and disillusioned
by the foreignness of the town, so I felt relieved when I discovered that my wanderings had brought me
back to the harbor.

Our troopship, floodlit in the night, loomed over the concrete aprons and wharves.

I noticed the dancing club when I came across the dozens of troops thronging around the entrance.
Wondering what was attracting them, I pushed through the crowd and went inside.

The large interior was dark and hot, crammed to the walls with human bodies, filled with the endless
throbbing beat of synthesized rock. My eyes were dazzled by the colored lasers and spotlights flashing
intensely from positions close to the ceiling. No one was dancing. At points around the walls, young
women stood on glinting metal platforms head-height above the crowds, their naked, oil-glossed bodies
picked out by glaring white spotlights. Each of them held a microphone against her lips and was speaking
unexcitedly into it, pointing down at certain of the men on the dance floor.

As I pushed my way into the central area I was spotted by them. At first, in my inexperience, I thought
they were waving to me or greeting me in some other way. I was tired and disappointed after my long
walk around the town and I raised a hand in weary response. The young woman on the platform closest
to me had a voluptuous body: she stood with her feet wide apart and her pelvis thrust forward, glorying in
the revelation of her nakedness by the intrusive light. When I waved she moved suddenly, leaning
forward on the metal rail around her platform so that her huge breasts dangled temptingly towards the
men below. The spotlight source instantly shiftedтАФa new beam flashed up from behind and below her,
garishly illuminating her large buttocks and casting her shadow brightly on the ceiling. She spoke more
urgently into her microphone, jabbing her hand in my direction.

Alarmed by being paid special attention, I moved deeper into the press of uniformed male bodies, hoping
to lose myself in the crowd. Within a few seconds, though, a number of women had converged on me
from different sides, reaching out through the jam of bodies to take me by the arms. Each of them was
wearing a radio headset, with a pin-mike suspended close in front of her lips. Soon I was surrounded by
them. They led me irresistibly across to one side.

While they continued to press around me, one of them flicked her fingers in front of my face, her thumb