"James Tiptree Jr. - Houston, Houston Do You Read" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

High. His fly open, his dick in his hand, he can still
see the grey zipper edge of his jeans around his pale
exposed pecker. The hush. The sickening wrongness
of shapes, faces turning. The first blaring giggle. Girls.
He was in the girls' can. -

He flinches wryly now, so many years later, not looking at the women's faces.
The cabin curves around over his head surrounding him with their alien things:
the beading rack, the twins' loom, Andy's leather work, the damned kudzu vine
wriggling everywhere, the chickens. So cosy.... Trapped, he is. Irretrievably
trapped for life in everything he does not enjoy. Strutturelessness. Personal
trivia, unmeaning intimacies. The claims he can somehow never meet. Ginny: You
never
talk to me . . . Ginny, love, he thinks involuntarily. The hurt doesn't come.

Bud Geirr's loud chuckle breaks in on him. Bud is joking with some of them,
out of sight around a bulkhead. Dave is visible, though. Major Norman Davis on
the far side of the cabin, his bearded profile bent toward a small dark woman
Lorimer can't quite focus on. But Dave's head seems oddly tiny and sharp, in
fact the whole cabin looks unreal. A cackle bursts out from the "ceiling"-the
bantam hen in her basket.

At this moment Lorimer becomes sure he has been drugged.

Curiously, the idea does not anger him. He leans or rather tips back, perching
cross-legged in the zero gee, letting his gaze go to the face of the woman he
has been talking with. Connie. Constantia Morelos. A tall moonfaced woman in
capacious green pajamas. He has never really cared for talking to women.
Ironic.

"I suppose," he says aloud, "it's possible that in some sense we are not
here."

That doesn't sound too clear, but she nods interestedly. She's watching my
reactions, Lorimer tells himself. Women are natural poisoners. Has he said
that aloud too? Her expression doesn't change. His vision is taking on a
pleasing local clarity. Connie's skin strikes him as quite fine,
healthy-looking. Olive tan even after two years in space. She was a farmer, he
recalls. Big pores, but without the caked look he associates with women her
age.

"You probably never wore make-up," he says. She looks puzzled. "Face paint,
powder. None of you have."

"Oh!" Her smile shows a chipped front tooth. "Oh yes, I think Andy has."

"Andy?"

"For plays. Historical plays, Andy's good at that."