"Norman Spinrad - A Thing of Beauty (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

would want to see. And he was swimming like a goldfish in a sea of yen! I could hardly believe my
good luck. How much could I take him for?
"Ah . . . what size artifact did you have in mind, Mr. Ito?" I asked as casually as I
could.
"I wish to acquire a major piece of American monumental architecture so that I may convert
the gardens of my estate into a shrine to its beauty and historicity. Therefore, a piece of
classical proportions is required. Of course, it must be worthy of enshrinement, otherwise an
embarrassing loss of esteem will surely ensue."
"Of course."
This was not going to be just another Howard Johnson or gas station sale; even something
like an old Hilton or the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame I unloaded last year was thinking too
small. In his own way, Ito was telling me that price was no object, the sky was the limit. This
was the dream of a lifetime! A sucker with a bottomless bank account placing himself trustingly in
my tender hands!
"Should it please you, Mr. Ito," I said, "we can inspect several possibilities here in New
York immediately. My jumper is on the roof."
"Most gracious of you to interrupt your most busy schedule on my behalf, Mr. Harris. I
would be delighted."
I lifted the jumper off the roof, floated her to a thousand feet, then took a Mach 1.5
jump south over the decayed concrete jungles at the tip of Manhattan. The curve brought us back to
float about a mile north of Bedloe's Island. I took her down to three hundred and brought her in
toward the Statue of Liberty at a slow drift, losing altitude imperceptibly as we crept up on the
Headless Lady, so that by the time we were just off shore, we were right down on the deck. It was
a nice touch to make the goods look more impressive-manipulating the perspectives so that the
huge, green, headless statue, with its patina of firebomb soot, seemed to rise up out of the bay
like a ruined colossus as we floated toward it.
Mr. Ito betrayed no sign of emotion. He stared straight ahead out the bubble without so
much as a word or a flicker of gesture.
"As you are no doubt aware, this is the famous Statue of Liberty," I said. "Like most such
artifacts, it is available to any buyer who will display it with proper dignity. Of course, I
would have no trouble convincing the Bureau of National Antiquities that your intentions are


file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Norman%20Spinrad%20-%20A%20Thing%20of%20Beauty.txt (2 of 8) [10/18/2004 5:21:07 PM]
 file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Norman%20Spinrad%20-%20A%20Thing%20of%20Beauty.txt

exemplary in this regard."
I set the autopilot to circle the island at fifty yards offshore so that Ito could get a
fully rounded view, and see how well the statue would look from any angle, how eminently suitable
it was for enshrinement. But he still sat there with less expression on his face than the average
C-grade servitor.
"You can see that nothing has been touched since the Insurrectionists blew the statue's
head off," I said, trying to drum up his interest with a pitch. "Thus, the statue has picked up
yet another level of historical

significance to enhance its already formidable venerability. Originally a gift from France, it has
historical significance as an emblem of kinship between the American and French revolutions.
Situated as it is in the mouth of New York harbor, it became a symbol of America itself to
generations of immigrants. And the damage the Insurrectionists did only serves as a reminder of
how lucky we were to come through that mess as lightly as we did. Also, it adds a certain