"Jack Vance - Assault on a City" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Parade is Spaceman's Rest: a jail reserved for overexuberant spacemen.
Out yonder is the Baund, the most garish section of Jillyville: saloons,
bordellos, shampoo parlors, cult studios, curio shops, mind-readers,
evangelists and prophets, gunk-peddlersтАФall in the Baund."
"What a picturesque place!"
"Yes, indeed. Here's the Black Opal Cafe, and there's a table; let's sit and
watch for a bit."
For a period they sat and sipped drinks: Waldo, a clear cold Hyperion
Elixir, Alice, a goblet of the popular Tanglefoot Punch. They watched the
passers-by: tourists from the backlands, spacemen, the young folk of Hant.
Ladies of the night sauntered past with an eye for the spacemen, their
wrist-chains jingling with socket adapters. They dressed in the most
modish extremes, hair piled high and sprinkled with sparkling lights.
Some varnished their skins, others wore cheek-plates plumed with jaunty
feathers. Their ears were uniformly clipped into elf-horns; their shoulder
finials rose in grotesque spikes. Waldo suggested that Alice take their
picture, and she did so. "But I'm really more interested in representative
pictures of representative folk, such as yourself and that fine young couple
yonder. Aren't they picturesque? My word, what are those creatures?"
"Those are jeeks," said Waldo. "From Caph Three. There's quite a
colony here. Notice the organ above the dorsal horn? It ejects body-tar,
which smells like nothing on Earth . . . Look yonder, those tall whitish
creatures. They're wampoons from Argo Navis. About five hundred live in
an old brick warehouse. They don't walk out too often. I don't see any
tinkos, and the spangs won't appear until just before dawn."
A tall man stumbled against the railing and thrust a hairy face over
their table. "Can you spare a dollar or two, your lordships? We're poor
backlanders looking for work, and hungry so that we can hardly walk."
"Why not try gunk," suggested Waldo, "and take your mind off your
troubles."
"Gunk is not free either, but if you'll oblige with some coins, I'll make
myself merry and gay."
"Try that white building across the Parade. They'll fix you up."
The gunker roared an obscenity. He looked at Alice. "Somewhere, my
lovely darling, we've met. Out there somewhere, in some lovely land of
glory; I'll never forget your face. For old times' sake, a dollar or two!"
Alice found a five-dollar bill. The gunker, chuckling in mad glee, seized
it and shambled away.
"Money wasted," said Waldo. "He'll buy gunk, some cheap new
episode."
"I suppose so ... Why isn't wiring illegal?"
Waldo shook his head. "The perceptories would go out of business. And
never discount the power of love."
"Love?"
"Lovers wire themselves with special sockets, so that they can plug into
one another. You don't do this on Rampold?"
"Oh, no indeed."
"Aha. You're shocked."
 "Not really. I'm not even surprised. Just think, you could even make love
by telephone or television, or even by a recording; all you need is the right