"William Tuning - Terro-Human - Fuzzy 04 - Fuzzy Bones" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuning William)

"Thursday?" Christiana had said, falling for it.

"I certainly am!" The Rev boomed. "Let's have a drink!"

"Good morning, children," The Rev said, without breaking stride as he headed
for his favorite barstool. He clapped his hands together and rubbed the palms
against each other vigorously. "Sustenance, Harry," he said to the barman,
"sustenance."

Phil Helton was a bit youngish-early forties-to be a Master Gunnery Sergeant,
but he didn't think of himself as "children" in any sense of the word. To The
Rev, though, maybe I am, he thought. But, then, when he talks about "gathering
his flock" on Zarathustra, I don't reckon he means herding sheep, either.

The Rev himself was some indeterminate age which could fall anywhere between
thirty and sixty, even allowing for a good deal of hyperspace travel. His hair
was gray at the temples, but thick and healthy. He was a little on the fat
side, but had the fast, light-footed movements of a young man. There were
wrinkles around his eyes but the eyes themselves were an alert and piercing
dark blue.

He took a respectful swig of his first drink and shuddered violently for
several seconds. "Ahhhhhhhh," he said. "Like blood to a vampire."

While The Rev swapped pleasantries with the barman- and gambled him out of the
next two drinks playing Double-O-Helton and Christiana drifted around the rim
of the lounge toward the bar, drinking in the different views in the
observation screens.

Helton had been on Zarathustra before, but not recently, so his replies to
Christiana's barrage of questions about the planet were less than informative.
Everything would be changed by the current land rush, in any case.

The two of them had drifted over to The Rev's roost at the bar.

"Only a couple more hours," Helton said, nodding toward the image of the
Zarathustran moon. "Then the last leg down to Mallorysport for you and the
shuttle to Xerxes for me. What's the name of the place where you'll be setting
up your mission, Rev? I may get down and see you."

The Rev shrugged. "I don't know what it's called or where it is. But I know
Mallorysport is the largest city on the planet-seventy-five thousand or so.
Might be double or triple that by now, with all this immigration. So there's
bound to be a slum section for me to work in-some place that's crying for a
soup kitchen and medical mission."

"A slum?" Christiana said. "Already? Zarathustra's only been settled for a
little more than twenty-five years."