"Norstrilia" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

5

What happens in the story?

Read it.

Who’s there?

It starts with Rod McBan — who had the real name of Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William Mac-Arthur McBan. But you can’t tell a story if you call the main person by a name as long as Roderick Frederick Ronald Arnold William MacArthur McBan. You have to do what his neighbors did — call him Rod McBan. The old ladies always said, “Rod McBan the hundred and fifty-first…” and then sighed. Flurp a squirt at them, friends. We don’t need numbers. We know his family was distinguished. We know the poor kid was born to troubles.

Why shouldn’t he have troubles?

He was due to inherit the Station of Doom.

And then he gets around. He crosses all sorts of people. C’mell, the most beautiful of the girlygirls of Earth. Jean-Jacques Vomact, whose family must have preceded the human race. The wild old man at Adaminabay. The trained spiders of Earthport. The subcommissioner Teadrinker. The Lord Jestocost, whose name is a page in history. The friends of the Ee-telly-kelly, and a queer tankful of friends they were. B’dank, of the cattle-police. The Catmaster. Tostig Amaral, about whom the less said the better. Ruth, in pursuit. C’mell, in flight. The Lady Johanna, laughing.

He gets away.

He got away. See, that’s the story. Now you don’t have to read it.

Except for the details.

They follow.

(He also bought one million women, far too many for any one boy to put to practical use, but it is not altogether certain, reader, that you will be told what he did about them.)