"John Varley - Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

194 John Varley

"When did you change your mind?" she asked.

I thought back. "At first I thought it was while you were caring for me when I was so helpless. Now I can
recall when it was. It was shortly after I walked out of the tent for that last night on the ground."

She couldn't find anything to say about that. She just beamed at me. I began to wonder what sort of
papers I'd be signing when we got to Venusburg: adoption, or marriage contract.

I didn't worry about it. It's uncertainties like that that make life interesting. We got up together, leaving the
pile of jewels on the floor. Walking softly, we hurried out to catch the blimp.


Golto /ing. Gotta Dance
Sailing in toward a rendezvous with Janus, Barnum and Bailey encountered a giant, pulsing quarter note.
The stem was a good five kilometers tall. The note itself was a kilometer in diameter, and glowed a faint
turquoise. It turned ponderously on its axis as they approached it.

"This must be the place," Barnum said to Bailey.

"Janus approach control to Barnum and Bailey," came a voice from the void, "You will encounter the
dragline on the next revolution. You should be seeing the visual indicator in a few minutes."

Barnum looked down at the slowly turning irregular ball of rock and ice that was Janus, innermost
satellite of Saturn. Something was coming up behind the curve of the horizon. It didn't take long for
enough of it to become visible so they could see what it was. Barnum had a good laugh.

"Is that yours, or theirs?" he asked Bailey.

Bailey sniffed. "Theirs. Just how silly do you think I am?"

The object rising behind the curve of the satellite was a butterfly net, ten kilometers tall. It had a long,
fluttering net trailing from a gigantic hoop. Bailey sniffed again, but applied the necessary vectors to
position them for being swooped up in the preposterous thing.

"Come on, Bailey," Barnum chided. "You're just jealous because you didn't think of it first."

"Maybe so," the symb conceded. "Anyway, hold onto your hat, this is likely to be quite a jerk."

The illusion was carried as far as was practical, but

196 John Varley

Barnum noticed that the first tug of deceleration started sooner than one would expect if the transparent
net was more than an illusion. The force built up gradually as the electromagnetic field clutched at the
metal belt he had strapped around his waist. It lasted for about a minute. When it had trailed off, Janus no
longer appeared to rotate beneath them. It was coming closer.

"Listen to this," Bailey said. Barnum's head was filled with music. It was bouncy, featuring the reedy,