"Jack Vance - Green Magic" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

Fair examined the two men. Both wore conservative suits and carried cashmere topcoats over their arms.
Fair noticed that the left thumb-nail of each man glistened green.

Fair rose politely to his feet. "Will you sit down?"

The green sprites hung up their overcoats and slid into the booth. Fair looked from one to the other. He
addressed Jaadian. "Aren't you he whom I interviewed several weeks ago?"

Jaadian assented. "You have not accepted my advice."

Fair shrugged. "You asked me to remain ignorant, to accept my stupidity and ineptitude."

"And why should you not?" asked Jaadian gently. "You are a primitive in a primitive realm; nevertheless
not one man in a thousand can match your achievements."

Fair agreed, smiling faintly. "But knowledge creates a craving for further knowledge. Where is the harm
in knowledge?"

Misthemar, the more mercurial of the sprites, spoke angrily. "Where is the harm? Consider your earthen
monster! It befouled forty miles of delicacy, the record of ten million years. Consider your caterpillar! It
trampled our pillars of carved milk, our dreaming towers, damaged the nerve-skeins which extrude and
waft us our Meanings."


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 Green Magic


"I'm dreadfully sorry," said Fair. "I meant no destruction."

The sprites nodded. "But your apology conveys no guarantee of restraint."

Fair toyed with his glass. A waiter approached the table, addressed the two sprites. "Something for you
two gentlemen?"

Jaadian ordered a glass of charged water, as did Misthemar. Fair called for another highball.

"What do you hope to gain from this activity?" inquired Misthemar. "Destructive forays teach you
nothing!"

Fair agreed. "I have learned little. But I have seen miraculous sights. I am more than ever anxious to
learn."

The green sprites glumly watched the bubbles rising in their glasses. Jaadian at last drew a deep sigh.
"Perhaps we can obviate toil on your part and disturbance on ours. Explicitly, what gains or advantages
do you hope to derive from green magic?"

Fair, smiling, leaned back into the red imitation-leather cushions. "I want many things. Extended life--
mobility in time--comprehensive memory--augmented perception, with vision across the whole
spectrum. I want physical charm and magnetism, the semblance of youth, muscular endurance... Then