"Jack Vance - Meet Miss Universe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vance Jack)

practical. We offer a yacht. A girl from Deserta Delicta wins. She's never
seen more than a mud-puddle. What does she do with the yacht?"
"Something we've got to consider."
Clydell went on. "Take a girl on Conexxa. Give her jewels and she'd laugh
at you. She's thrown diamonds big as your fist at strange dogs."
"Maybe a Rolls Royce Aero-nautтАФ"
"There again. Veidranus ride butterflies. Picture a Veidranu girl driving
an Aeronaut through all those vines and flowers!"
LeGrand took a shallow puff at the cigar. "It's a challenge, Harde-man . .
. What kind of prize would you suggest?"
"Something indefinite," said Cly-dell. "Give 'em whatever they want. Let
the winner name it."
"Suppose she named the city of Los Angeles?" LeGrand said with a merry
laugh.
"Anything within reason. Set a valuation of a hundred thousand dollars on
it."
"By golly, Hardeman, I think you've come up with something!" Tony put
down his cigar. "Of course there are problems ..."
This was a key gambit. Harde-man Clyde's favorite aphorism was, "Every
problem has its solu-tion." To use the word "problem" was to push one of
Clydell's most reliable buttons.
"Hmmf. Nothing which couldn't be solved," said Clydell. "Every problem has
its solution."
Tony approached the second phase of his plan; so startling and outr├й was
the entirety that he had not dared to broach the whole thing at once.
"We'd be pretty limited, of course," he said. "There's only half a dozen
worlds with humanoid life. Some of those are C's and D's тАФnot really human at
all. And we wouldn't want to fool with any-thing second-rate." He slapped his
fist into his palm. "I've got it! Listen to this, Hardeman, it's a killer!"
"I'm listening," said Clydell noncommittally.
"Let's throw the contest wide open! Come one, come all! Every planet sends
their most beautiful female!"
Clydell stared blankly. "What do you mean, 'every planetтАЩ? Every planet in
the Solar System?"
"No!" cried LeGrand enthusias-tically. "Every planet that's got an
intelligent civilization. Let the whole galaxy in on it!"
Clydell smiled at the whimsy of his aide. "Okay. We get a Millamede and a
Johnsonian, a Pentacynth or two, and maybe a Jangrill from Blue-star if we can
find one. So horrible that even their own husbands won't look them in the
face. And we set them up against, say, Althea Daybro, or Mercedes O'Donnell."
Clydell spat over the railing, made a rasping noise in his throat. "I admit
it makes a macabre spec-tacleтАФbut where does 'beauty con-test' come in?"
LeGrand nodded thoughtfully. "It's a problem that's got to be worked out. A
problem ..."
Clydell shook his head. "I'm not sold on this last angle. It lacks
dignity."
"You're right," said Tony Le-Grand. "We can't let this become a farce.
Because it's not just an ordinary beauty-contestтАФit's more important. An
experiment in inter-world relations. Now if we got some very distinguished men
for judgesтАФyourself for instanceтАФthe Secretary GeneralтАФMathias BradisnekтАФHerve