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

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"I don't believe it," said Jerry Blaine. "I mean, someone down there must be playing some kind of tricks."
"Nobody plays tricks in top secret code/' Colonel Briston countered. "Jess Hawkins signed those orders
himself. And you've just seen those girls with your own eyes. I admit it's crazy — "
"Crazy? It's wild, man," said Phil Lewis. "Read those orders through again, will you, Mark. I've got to
hear that nice little message one more time."
Briston chuckled. "Dear guys/' he read, "with each section of USSF 193 you will be sent three pieces of
equipment necessary for Project Cuddle-up (making a total of twelve). Your friendly Uncle Sam has
spared no expense to bring them to you directly from Europe, so handle with care, huh? They'll be
rotated every six months or thereabouts, but meanwhile they can be stored in USSF 193. Share them
equally and have fun — that's an order. Any communications concerning the equipment are to be
addressed to me personally in this same code. That, too, is an order. Yours sincerely, Jess Hawkins,
Director, National Space Agency."
"Wowee!" Lewis exclaimed. "Remind me never to complain about paying taxes again." Just then, Sydney
emerged from the next room. She had removed her spacesuit and was clad very lightly. "Blimey," she
said, "you blokes sure keep a cold place around 'ere. Nanette and Constance and meself, we're freezin'.
We was wondering if any of you chaps would care to warm us up a mite." By pulling rank, Colonel
Briston managed to be first in line.

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It was very late at what the station considered night, about a month after the girls had arrived. Lucette,
Babette, Francette, Toilette, Violette, Rosette, Suzette and Myrtle were out on call, while the rest were
getting what sleep they could. Sydney was peacefully curled up in bed, dreaming the dreams of the
not-so-innocent, when all of a sudden a rock the size of a man's fist ripped through the wall near her bed
and banged against the wall on the far side. A hissing noise filled the room, and Sydney started gasping
for breath as the air was sucked out of the hole made by the meteoroid.
In a flash, she was out of her room and closing the airtight compartment door behind her. The three other
girls rushed out into the hallway to find out what was the matter.
"Blimey!" Sydney said when she got her breath back. "The damned thing's sprung a leak!"

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"Everything's okay now, Sydney," Jerry Blaine said as he came in from outside. "I got it all patched up.
I'm afraid, though, that whatever you had loose in your room would have been sucked out into space.
Nothing valuable, I hope."
"Not that I can think of," Sydney told him. "But are you sure this won't never 'appen again?"
"Like I told you before, it was a once-in-a-billion fluke. It wouldn't happen again in a thousand years."
"It better not, ducks, or I'm back down to Earth in a shot." She started back into her room.
"Oh, by the way," Blaine called after her, "are you booked for tonight? Good. I get off at about sixteen
hundred — you can come over then."
"A woman's work ain't never done," Sydney sighed wisely as she reentered her room. Most of her stuff
was still in the bureau drawers, but search as she would she couldn't find the little pill case that she kept
beside her bed. "Oh well," she said, "I've managed without them before. I can do it again for a while."
It was nearly four months, to be exact, when she decided that the situation warranted her telling
somebody, so she told Colonel Briston, who had just returned from three months Earthside. "My God!"
was all he could say.
"It ain't as serious as all that."