"Mike Resnick - Ivory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

had grown increasingly sullen.

Not so the Iron Duchess. More machine than woman, her metal hands were busy putting her winnings
into tidy little piles, her titanium teeth reflected the lightning as she smiled, her artificial heart pumped
chemically-enriched blood through plastic veins, and her mechanical voice filled the room with the strange
melody of her happy chatter. Tembo Laibon studied her out of the corner of his eye, and wondered how
much of her was actually alive.
One who was unquestionably alive, and reveling in it, was the creature who sat to Tembo Laibon's right.
Nobody knew what it had been originally, but somehow, somewhere, as it wandered down the highways
and byways of its life, it decided that it wanted to be on the winning side for a change, and had
undergone a series of surgical alterations that left it looking like a misshapen human. Its eyes were orange,
its nostrils were too far apart, its ears were too flat against its head, one could still see where extra fingers
and opposing thumbs had been removed from each hand, and it continually shifted its position on its
chair, for it had not yet adjusted to the way its new body bent.

It spoke in exquisite Terran, as if it had spent its formative years in an exclusive school on Deluros VIII
or even Earth itself, it brushed its locks of false hair back from its reconstructed forehead, it drank dry
martinis and tried to hide its expression of distaste, and, when it felt no one was watching, it turned to
admire its reflection in the glass of the reinforced viewport that Tembo Laibon had inserted on one wall of
the room.

It called itself Son-of-Man, and thus far this evening it was playing as if a more revered Son of Man were
standing by its shoulder and bringing it luck.

Sitting directly across from Tembo Laibon was Buko, the red alien from Sigma Silani IV. His lizardlike
skin looked slick and moist, and glistened in the dim light of the viewport, and his face, which was
incapable of expression, bore a striking resemblance to the dragons Tembo Laibon had read about when
he was a small child. Buko was totally naked, and his skin exuded a too-sweet odor of alien oils.
Perched motionless between his shoulder blades, its transparent claws and long beak buried deep in his
flesh, was a tiny featherless birdlike creature that lived in some bizarre kind of symbiosis with him.

Finally Tembo Laibon put the cards down on the table and shifted his weight on his chair, which hovered
a few inches above the floor. The ship carrying the last two players had just docked, and he had
suspended the game until they arrived at the table.

тАЬI'd like a drink, please,тАЭ said Son-of-Man, flashing him a smile that displayed a mouthful of
carefully-chiseled purple teeth.

тАЬSame as last time?тАЭ asked Tembo Laibon.

тАЬBut of course,тАЭ replied the thing that looked like a man. тАЬAlien drinks are so ... sogauche .тАЭ It wrinkled
its artificial nose distastefully.

тАЬAnyone else?тАЭ asked Tembo Laibon, watching an exceptionally violent blue explosion through the
viewport. He wondered idly if the lightning above the sprawling Serengeti Plains was as foreboding, and
decided that it couldn't be.

тАЬLast call for drinks.тАЭ

There was no response, and Tembo Laibon tapped out an order on the panel in front of him. A moment