"Norman Spinrad - Triceratops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spinrad Norman)

melancholy atmosphere, don't you think? Emotion, intrinsic beauty, and historicity combined in one
elegant piece of monumental statuary. And the asking price is a good deal less than you might
suppose."
Mr. Ito seemed embarrassed when he finally spoke. "I trust you will forgive my saying so,
Mr. Harris, since the emotion is engendered by the highest regard for ,the noble past of your
great nation, but I find this particular artifact somewhat depressing."
"How so, Mr. Ito?"
The jumper completed a circle of the Statue of Liberty and began another as Mr. Ito
lowered his eyes and stared at the oily waters of the bay as he answered.
"The symbolism of this broken statue is quite saddening, representing as it does a decline
from your nation's past greatness. For me to enshrine such an artifact in Kyoto would be an
ignoble act, an insult to the memory of your nation's greatness. It would be a statement of
overweening pride."

Can you beat that? He was offended because he felt that displaying the statue in Japan
would be insulting the United States, and therefore I was implying he was nikulturi by offering it
to him. When all that the damned thing was to any American was one more piece of old junk left
over from the glorious days that the Japanese, who were nuts for such rubbish, might be persuaded
to pay through the nose for the dubious privilege of carting away. These Japs could drive you
crazy-who else could you offend by suggesting they do something that they thought would offend you
but you thought was just fine in the first place?
"I hope I haven't offended you, Mr. Ito," I blurted out. I could have bitten my tongue off
the moment I said it, because it was exactly the wrong thing to say. I had offended him, and- it
was only a further offense to put him in a position where politeness demanded that he deny it.
"I'm sure that could not have been further from your intention, Mr. Harris," Ito said with
convincing sincerity. "A pang of sadness at the perishability of greatness, nothing more. In fact
as such, the experience might be said to be healthful to the soul. But making such an artifact a
permanent part of one's surroundings would be more than I could bear."
Were these his true feelings or just smooth Japanese politeness? Who could tell what these
people really felt? Sometimes I think they don't even know what they feel themselves. But at any
rate, I had to show him something that would change his mood, and fast. Hm-m-m . . .
"Tell me, Mr. Ito, are you fond of baseball?"
His eyes lit up like satellite beacons and the heavy mood evaporated in the warm, almost
childish, glow of his sudden smile. "Ali, yes!" he said. "I retain a box at Osaka Stadium, though
I must confess I secretly retain a partiality for the Giants. How strange it is that this profound
game has so declined in the country of its origin."
"Perhaps. But that very fact has placed something on the market which I'm sure you'll find
most congenial. Shall we go?"
"By all means," Mr. Ito said. "I find our present environs somewhat overbearing."
I floated the jumper to five hundred feet and programmed a Mach 2.5 jump curve to the
north that quickly put the great hunk of moldering, dirty copper far behind. It's amazing how much
sickening emotion the Japanese are able to attach to almost any piece of old junk. Our old junk at
that, as if Japan didn't have enough useless old clutter of its own. But I certainly shouldn't
complain about it; it makes me a pretty good living. Everyone knows the old saying about a fool
and his money.

The jumper's trajectory put us at float over the confluence of the Harlem and East rivers


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