"Margaret St Clair - The Stroller" - читать интересную книгу автора (St. Clair Margaret)

the tests, dozens of them, and finally told me there wasn't a thing wrong with me mentally or physically
except that I needed more rest. Rest, bushwah! I've been sleeping ten hours a night, and I wake up
tireder than when I went to bed."
Marta studied him.
"You do look sort of tired," she observed. "Maybe you need some vitor-ray treatments."
George ignored this comment.
"Of course, the Old Man's not such a bad guy," he said. "He never said anything about that time I
missed the ship at Marsport."
"You mean that time you were so drunk on soma? One of the times."
George gave an irritated shrug.
"Never mind that," he snapped. "I mentioned it because I asked him to have dinner with us on
Thursday, the day before we sail, and I want you to have a real old-fashioned home-cooked meal for
him. Maybe I can soften him up. Have something nice for him. None of this complete meal stuff out of the
freezerтАФhave something good. Out of cans."
"You mean like my canned crab and mushroom casserole?"
"Um-hum. Have that. And what's that dessert you make with the canned peaches and the soma?
Peche flambe, or something. He might like that."

GEORGE set the 'copter down neatly on the roof of their apartment house.
"Remember," he said, "I've got to make a good impression on him. Flatter him as much as you can,
but use your head about it. And I you get any kind of a chance to tell him about how reliable I usually am,
do it."
The days moved on toward Thursday. George continued to complain of fatigue, and on Tuesday
night Marta woke up shrieking with a vague and horrible nightmare, but it was attributed to indigestion;
after a dose of antiacid, she went back to sleep. On Wednesday she had her hallucination.
She was putting a bunch of old digests and tabloids away in the closet in the living room when she
came across the jacket George had used four or five years ago when he went grotch hunting.
"George!" she called. "Oh, George! Can I throw your old gray jacket away? It's full of moth holes."
"What are you yelling at me for?" George asked irritably from behind her. He had been sitting in his
study, which was only about five feet distant from the closet, drinking soma. "I'm right here."
Marta came out of the closet and stared at him. One hand went to her heart. The pallor of her heavy,
sagging face showed through her thick face lacquer as a muddy gray.
"WhaтАФI saw you go into the kitchen!" she said. "You were wearing your brown suit. I was looking
right at you, and you walked the length of the living room and went into the kitchen and closed the door
behind you. That's why I yelled at you. You were wearing your brown suit. You've got the blue one on
now. You were wearing your brown suit!"
"Shut up!" George said passionately. "Are you trying to drive me crazy? I've been sitting right here all
the time. What do you mean, you saw me walk into the kitchen? You couldn't have. I've been sitting right
here all the time."
"But I saw you! You were wearing your brown suit."
"You imagined it!" her husband shrieked at her. "It's your imagination. You shut up. What are you
trying to do, get me so nervous the Old Man will think I'm ready for the loony bin? You imagined it!"
Marta looked at him. She had to lick her lips twice before she could answer.
"Yes. Yes, of course. That must be it. I imagined it."
George spent the rest of the day drinking soma and holding his hands up before his eyes to see if they
had stopped shaking. Marta got a five-suit deck of cards out of the closet and played solitaire. None of
her games came out, but she was too distraught to realize that she had left two of the cards inside their
box.

SURPRISINGLY, both George and Marta slept well. They awakened far more cheerful than they