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

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"Of course not. They're already in the ship, hopelessly bewitched, waiting for her. Didn't you notice
the three anklets on her leg? Well, each of them stands for a man she has conquered. It's an old
Muggenwort custom. Probably today she is wearing four. Didn't you ever wonder what happens to all
the men who disappear from the face of the Earth each year, Roger?"
"No, I never did," Roger said. "But there is one thing I'm wondering about. Why did you come to
Earth?"
Alayne of Altair's bluebird eyes dropped to his chin. тАЬIтАФI was coming to that," she said. "You see, in
Buzenborg, girls chase boys instead of boys chasing girls."
"That seems to be a standard operating procedure on Altair VI."
"That's because the man shortage isn't confined to Muggenwort alone but encompasses the whole
planet. When push-button-type spaceships became available, Buzenborg as well as Muggenwort girls
began renting them and traveling to other planets in search of husbands, and Buzenborg as well as
Muggenwort girls schools started teaching alien languages and customs. The information was easily
available because the Altair VI world government has been sending secret anthropological expeditions to
Earth, and planets like it, for years, so that we will be ready to make contact with you when you finally
lick space travel and qualify for membership in the League of Super Planets."
"What's the Buzenborg husband quota?" Roger asked acidly.
"One. That's why we Buzenborg girls wear wodgets. We're not like those witches from Muggenwort.
They don't care whom they get, just so they have strong backs; but we girls from Buzenborg do.
Anyway, when my wodget registered ninety, I knew that you and I were ideally suited for each other,
and that's why I struck up a conversation with you. IтАФI didn't know at the time that you were half
bewitched."
"Suppose your wodget had been right. What then?"
"Why, I'd have taken you back to Buzenborg with me, of course. Oh, you'd have loved it there,
Rog," she rushed on. "Our industrial corporations would be crazy about your poetic analysis of science,
and you could have got a swell job, and my folks would have built us a house and we could have settled
down and raisedтАФandтАФraisedтАФ" Her voice grew sad. "But I guess I'll have to settle for Ashley instead.
He only registers sixty on my wodget, but sixty is better than nothing."
"Are you naive enough to believe that if you go to his apartment tonight he'll marry you and return to
Buzenborg with you?"
"I have to take a chance. I only had enough money to rent the ship for a week. What do you think I
amтАФa rich witch from Muggenwort?'
She had raised her eyes to his, and be searched them vainly for the deceit that should have been in
them. There must be some way he could trap her. She had eluded his time trap and his baseball trap and
Wait a minute! Maybe she hadn't eluded his time trap after all. If she was telling the truth and really
did want to cut Becky out and really did have a spaceship equipped with faster-than-light drive, she was
overlooking a very large ace up her sleeve.
"Did you ever hear the limerick about Miss Bright?' he asked. She shook her head. "It goes
something like this:

There was a young lady named Bright,
Whose speed was far faster than light;
She set out one day
In a relative way,
And returned home the previous night*

(*By Arthur H. B. Buller; ┬й by Punch.)

"Let me elaborate," Roger went on. "I met Becky a little less than twenty-four hours before I met