"Smith, E E 'Doc' - SubSpace Vol 2 - Subspace Encounter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

While the usherette was showing Rodnar where he was to sit, the FirSec half-rose
behind her desk and half-extended an exquisitely-worked crystal flask. "A whiff?" she
asked, but went on without a pause, "But I don't suppose you inhale, though, at that,"
and she withdrew the flask and sat down again.

"No, thanks, Your Ability, I'm in training; but please go ahead."

"Uh-uh; I don't really like the stuff my inhaling is strictly social."

The office-girl having left the room and closed the door behind her, the FirSec flipped the
switch that turned on the red "IN CONFERENCE" sign across the outer side of that door.
She then said "No calls" to her squawk-box and flipped its power-switch to "OFF";
continuing the while to look at him with an intensity and a purpose that surprised him to
the core.

It was not that a woman was taking the initiative-in their culture, that was the woman's
inalienable right and her exclusive privilege-it was that this particular woman would deign
to make a pass at him. She was a high Eleven, an Able, and he was a mere Thirty-Six;
more than one-third down the status scale toward being nothing at all. Beyond making
sure she was a non-psi he had not read her mind, not even the most superficial of her
surface thoughts, and he did not read it now. Very few if any top-bracket psiontists were
or are peeping toms.

"Subspace Technologist First Sonrodnar Rodnar of Slaar, I've been . . ." she began,
formally, but broke off and went on in a strangely altered tone, "Oh, down the cliff with
that stuff!" Dropping the folder onto the desk, she got up, walked around to face him-he
got up, too, of course-took his right hand in both of hers, and squeezed it hard. Her face
paled, then flushed, and her nostrils began to flare as she went on, "I watched you kill
that utterly unspeakable louse of a Garshan the other night. . . ."

A light flashed on in Rodnar's mind. He knew the connection, in strongly passionate
women, between violent death and sex; and his own quick passion began to flame into
being. But he wondered. That was days ago . . . it wouldn't last this long . . . or could it?
And how could a top-drawer FirSecan Able--ever have had enough to do with even a
high-star Garshan to hate him that much?

But there was more to come, and worse. ". . . and I reveled in every second of it," the
girl went on. "Death of Eagles, how I hated that slimy, nolligenous pfauld! So when your
dossier; with your request for an interview, hit my desk I became completely unstuck. I
owed you so much. . . . I'd been wondering so much what-or how to . . ." She broke off
and licked a lip with the tip of her tongue, for the man was moving.

He tossed his sling to the floor and, with left arm dangling carefully loose, he stepped up
to her until his chest just touched her breasts. "Yes?" he asked quietly.

She started to nod, then shook her head. "Uh-uh," she said, quite evidently very much
against both will and desire. "I shouldn't've-we mustn't-that ghastly wound; we'd tear it
wide open."

"Uh-uh," he disagreed. "It ought to be stuck together strong enough to hold by this time, I