"Stephen Goldin - The Last Ghost & Other Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen)

"I've still got my job to do," Ryan insisted stubbornly. "I'm not about to quit in the middle. I've got to find
out why ... " And he halted."
Why we went crazy?" Bael finished for him. "From our side of the fence, it's why we went sane. The
answer is all around you, if you'll just stop to look for it. The other fellows and myself are probably
distracting you. Maybe it'll help if you're alone for awhile. Fellas, let's leave Jeff here for a bit. Remember,
Jeff, if you want to talk to anybody, just give a holler. Someone'll hear you."
Bael and the others started walking casually off, talking and laughing among themselves. It was as though
Ryan had suddenly ceased to exist for them. Within a minute, all of them were gone. The suffocating
silence once again returned, leaving Ryan sitting in the middle of a seemingly deserted city.
The explorer reached quickly for his communicator and spewed out a desperate report to the ship
above. He was hoping for advice, but the ship just acknowledged the message tersely, told him to remain
cautious, and clicked off.
It wasn't until he stood up again that he saw the girl.

#

He stared for a long moment, unable to say anything.
The girl was not similarly handicapped. "Hello, Jeff," she said in soft tones. "Remember me?"
Remember her? How could he forget Dorothy, the first girl he'd ever slept with? Dorothy, with her small
but womanly bosom, her tinkly laugh, her warm desire to please ...
"You don't exist," Ryan stated flatly. "You're not real."
Dorothy cocked her head in that funny way she'd always done whenever he said something she didn't
understand. "Aren't I?"
"I'm in no mood for playing question and answer games. First Bael, now you. Whatever you are, you're
not Dorothy. She's a hundred parsecs away, she's married, and she's got three kids. You're nothing but a
fraud. Go away."
Dorothy just stared at her feet and didn't move. "You don't love me any more."
"Look," Ryan said, "I'll admit you're a clever hoax. It's just that I know you're not real. It's not your
fault... you tried."
"Not real?" Dorothy looked up, her eyes red and teary, her voice wavering. "You can see me and hear
me, can't you? If you came a little closer, you'd smell my perfume. If you'd reach out, you'd touch me. If
you bit me, you'd taste me. How much more real can I be?" Her plea bordered on hysteria.
Ryan hesitated. She must be a hallucination. There was no doubt about that. The well-trained officer in
him longed to reach for the communicator in his pocket. But the man in him said no. And some third part
of his mind kept repeating, "You're a fool." But which part was the fool? He couldn't very well love a
product of his imagination that had somehow materialized before him. This Dorothy was cold, unreal, a
shadow product of a mystery city.
And suddenly she was in his arms, feeling very real, very alive. Her face turned up, seeking his. Her
smallish breasts crushed against him, her thighs pressed tightly to his with small undulations that were
frankly sexual. Ryan tried to resist, tried to tell himself that this wasn't happening. He had his choice of
lies, but the Dorothy in his arms was somehow the more convincing. Her left hand caressed the hair on
the right side of his head. Her right hand fumbled greedily at the buttons of his tunic collar. Her mouth
pressed to his, opened, and out darted her small, firm tongue to run itself along the tips of his teeth.
There no longer was, could be, any doubt. To hell with logic! This was real. This was no delirium of his
mind, but the genuine flesh-and-blood article. He swam in a sea of sensation. The two of them fell to the
ground, which somehow seemed to become rubbery and resilient. But his mind did not have the chance
to dwell on this matter, for his body refused to let it. Reason withered before passion, as it had always
done for centuries.
So engrossed was he, in fact, that he did not even notice the insistent buzzing of his communicator.