"Robert F. Young - The Worlds of Robert F. Young" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

"Oh, I did!" Excitedly she wrote something down in her notebook, tore out the page and handed it to
him. "My Earth address," she explained. 'What time are you going to call for me tonight, Rog?"
 Abruptly his euphoria vanished. "Whatever gave you the idea we had a date for tonight?"
"IтАФI took it for granted. According to my wodgetтАФ"
"Stop!" Roger said. "I've had all I can take for one day of wodgets and demassifiers and
faster-than-light drives. Besides, it just so happens that I've got a date for tonight, and it also just so
happens that the girl I've got the date with is the girl IтАЩve been unconsciously searching for all my life and
didn't find till yesterday morning, and . . ."
He paused. Sudden sadness had roiled the blue depths of Alayne of Altair's eyes, and her mouth was
quivering like a frost-kissed sumac leaf in a November wind. "IтАФI understand now," she said. "Wodgets
react to compatibility of body chemistry and intellectual proclivities. They aren't sensitive enough to detect
superficial emotional attachments. IтАФI guess I came a day too late."
"You can't prove it by me. Well, give my regards to the Buzenborgians."
"WillтАФwill you be in the park tomorrow morning?"
He opened his mouth to deliver an emphatic noтАФand saw the second tear. It was even larger than
the first one had been and glimmered like a transparent pearl in the corner of her left eye. "I suppose so,"
he said resignedly.
"I'll be waiting for you on the bench."
He killed three hours in a movie house and picked up Becky at her apartment at seven-thirty. She
was wearing a black sheath that made her shape shout, and a pair of pointed shoes with metal tips that
matched the three golden bands around her ankle. He took one look into her gray eyes and knew then
and there that he was going to propose to her before the evening ended.
They dined in the same cafe. When they were halfway through their meal, Alayne of Altair walked in
the door on the arm of a sartorially elegant young man with a lean, hungry face and a long bushy tail.
Roger nearly fell out of his chair.
She spotted him right away and brought her escort over to the table. "Roger, this is Ashley Ames,"
she said excitedly. "He invited me out to dinner so he could continue my diction lesson. Afterward he's
going to take me to his apartment and show me his first edition of Pygmalion." She got her eyes on
Becky then and gave a start. Abruptly her gaze traveled floorward to where Becky's trim ankles were
visible just beneath the tablecloth, and when she raised her eyes again they had transmuted from blue to
green. "Three down and one to go," she said. "I should have known it would be one of you!"
Becky's eyes had undergone a metamorphosis too. They were yellow now instead of gray. "I saw
him first, and you know the rules as well as I do. So lay off!"
тАЬCome on," Alayne of Altair said haughtily to Ashley Ames, who was hovering predatorily just
behind her. "There must be better restaurants on Earth than this!"
Bewildered, Roger watched them leave. All he could think of was Little Red Riding Hood and the
wolf. "Do you know her?" he asked Becky.
"She's a real gone crackpot with an outer-space complex who comes in the Silver Spoon sometimes
and babbles about life on other planets. Let's change the subject, shall we?"
Roger did so. Dinner over, he took Becky to a show, and afterward he suggested a walk in the park.
She squeezed his arm in an eloquent answer. The sacred bench stood like an island in a tam of purest
moonlight, and they waded through the silvery shallows to its iron-wrought shores and sat down upon its
shelving hills. Her second kiss made the first seem sisterly, and when it was over Roger knew he would
never be the same again. "Will you marry me, Becky?" he blurted.
She didn't seem particularly surprised. "Do you really want me to?"
"I'll say! Just as soon as I get a job andтАФ"
"Kiss me, Roger."
He didn't get back to the subject till they were standing on her apartment-house steps. "Why, of
course I'll marry you, Roger," she said. "Tomorrow we'll take a drive into the country and make plans."
"Fine! I'll rent a car, and we'll take a lunch andтАФ"