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

corresponding temperament. A toque or cylinder of transparent film
clasped the top of her head and contained a froth of black curls, artfully
mingled with bubbles of pale-green glass. Her ears were concave shells
three inches high, rounded on top, with emerald plugs. Her skin was
marmoreal; her lips were enameled black; her eyes and eyebrows, both
black, could not be improved upon and remained in their natural
condition. Hernanda was a tall girl. Her breasts had been artificially
reduced to little rounded hummocks; her torso was a rather gaunt
cylinder over which she had drawn a tube of coarse white cloth, which
compressed her haunches. On her shoulders stood small bronze
ornaments, like urns or finials, into each of which she had placed a dram
of her personal scent. On her hands she wore greaves of black metal
clustered with green jewels. Under her right armpit was a socket and the
bottom terminal was decorated with a pink heart on which were inscribed
the initials B.H.
Hernanda stood proud and silent before Bo's inspection, knowing
herself perfect. Bo gave her no word of greeting; she said nothing to him.
He strode into his inner room, bathed, and changed into a black and white
diapered blouse, loose lime-green pantaloons, the legs long over his heels
and tucked into sandals to expose his long white toes. He tied a purple and
blue kerchief at a rakish angle to his head, and hung a string of black
pearls from his right ear. When he returned to the living room Hernanda
apparently had not moved. Silent as an obelisk she waited beside the far
wall. Bo stood brooding. Hernanda was just right in every aspect. He was a
lucky man to own the private plug to her socket. And yet... And yet what?
Bo angrily thrust aside the thought.
"I want to go to the Old Lair," said Hernanda.
"Do you have money?"
"Not enough."
"I'm short as well. We'll go down to Fotzy's."
They left the apartment and carefully adjusted the alarms; only last
week gunkers had broken in and stolen Bo's expensive term.
At Fotzy's they pressed buttons to order the dishes of their choice: hot
gobbets of paste in spice-sauce, a salad of nutrient crisps on a bed of
natural lettuce from the hydroponic gardens of Old City. After a moment
or two Bo said: "The spaceyards are no good. I'm going to get out."
"Oh? Why?"
"A man stands watching me. Unless I work like a kaffir he harangues
me. It's simply not comfortable."
"Poor old Bo."
"But for that flashing probation I'd tie him in a knot and kite off. I was
built for beauty, not toil."
"You know Suanna? Her brother has gone off into space."
"It's like jumping into nothing. He can have all he wants."
 "If I got money I'd like to take an excursion. Give me a thousand dollars,
Bo."
"You give me a thousand dollars. I'll go on the excursion."
"But you said you wouldn't go!"
"I don't know what I want to do."
Hernanda accepted the rejoinder in silence. They left the restaurant and