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

distracted way, fearing the black-caps more than anything.

I was surprised to see her: this one was much younger than the others. She was wearing hardly any
clothes to speak of: a tiny pair of shorts and a T-shirt with a torn neckline that hung low across one
shoulder, revealing the upper curve of a breast. Her arms were thin. She was not wearing a radio
headset. She was smiling towards me and as soon as I looked at her she spoke.

"Don't leave without discovering what we can do," she said, tilting her face to speak against my ear.

"I don't need to know," I shouted.

"This place is the cathedral of your dreams."

"What did you say?"

"Your dreams. Whatever you seek, they are here."

"No, I've had enough."
"Just try what we offer," she said, pressing her face so close to me that her curly hair lightly teased my
cheek. "We are here for you, eager to please you. One day you will need what whores provide."

"Never."

The black-caps had moved to block the doorway. I could see that beyond them, in the wide passageway
that led back to the street, more of their escouade were arriving. I wondered why they had suddenly
appeared at the club, what they were doing. Our leave was not officially over for many more hours. Was
there some emergency for which we had to return to the ship? Was this club, so prominently close to
where the ship had berthed, off-limits for some perverse reason? Nothing was clear. I was suddenly
frightened of the situation in which I had found myself.

Yet around me the hundreds of other men, all presumably from the same troopship as mine, appeared to
show no concern. The racket of the over-amplified music went on, drilling into the mind.

"You can leave this way," the girl said, touching my arm. She pointed towards a dark doorway placed
low, beneath a stage area, away from the main entrance.

The black-caps were now moving into the crowd of men, pushing people aside with rough movements of
their arms. The synaptic batons wavered threateningly. The young whore had already run down the short
flight of steps to the door and was holding it open for me. She beckoned urgently to me. I went quickly
to her and through the door. She closed it behind me.

I was in humid semi-darkness and I stumbled on an uneven floor. The air was thick with powerful scents
and although I could still hear the pulsating throb of the bass notes of the music there were many other
sounds around me. Notably I could hear the voices of other men: shouting, laughing, complaining. Every
voice was raised: in anger, excitement, urgency. At odd moments something on the other side of the
corridor wall would bash heavily against it.

I gained a sense of chaos, of events being out of control.

We came to a door a short distance along the corridorтАФshe opened it and led me through. I expected to