"Joe Haldeman - Angel of Light" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

I almost sold it to a fat old man who had lost both ears, I suppose in the war. He offered fifty dirham, but
while I was trying to bargain the price up, his ancient crone of a wife charged up and physically hauled
him away, shrieking. If he'd had an ear, she would have pulled him by it. The bookseller started to offer
his sympathies, but then both of them doubled over in laughter, and I had to join them.

As it turned out, the loss of that sale was a good thing. But first I had to endure my trial.
A barefoot man who looked as if he'd been fasting all year picked up the magazine and leafed through it
carefully, mumbling. I knew he was trouble. I'd seen him around, begging and haranguing. He was white,
which normally is not a problem with me. But white people who choose to live inside the walls are often
types who would not be welcome at home, wherever that might be.

He proceeded to berate me for being a bad Muslim—not hearing my correction, that I belonged to
Chrislam—and, starting with the licentious cover and working his way through the inside illustrations and
advertisements, to the last story, which actually had God's name in the title… he said that even a bad
Muslim would have no choice but to burn it on the spot.

I would have gladly burned it if I could burn it under him, but I was saved from making that decision by
the imam. Drawn by the commotion, he stamped over and began to question the man, in a voice as shrill
as his own, on matters of doctrine. The man's Arabic was no better than his diet, and he slunk away in
mid-diatribe. I thanked the imam and he left with a slight smile.

Then a wave of silence unrolled across the room like a heavy blanket, I looked to the tent entrance and
there were four men: Abdullah Zaragosa, our chief imam, some white man in a business suit, and two
policemen in uniform, seriously armed. In between them was an alien, one of those odd creatures visiting
from Arcturus.

I had never seen one, though I had heard them described on the radio. I looked around and was sad not
to see Fa-timah; she would hate having missed this.

It was much taller than the tallest human; it had a short torso but a giraffe-like neck. Its head was
something like a bird's, one large eye on either side. It cocked its head this way and that, looking around,
and then dropped down to say something to the imam!

They all walked directly toward me, the alien rippling on six legs. Cameras clicked; I hadn't brought one.
The imam asked if I was Ahmed Abd al-kareem, and I said yes, in a voice that squeaked.

"Our visitor heard of your magazine. May we inspect it?" I nodded, not trusting my voice, and handed it
to him, but the white man took it.

He showed the cover to the alien. "This is what we expected you to look like."

"Sorry to disappoint," it said in a voice that sounded like it came from a cave. It took the magazine in an
ugly hand, too many fingers and warts that moved, and inspected it with first one eye, and then the other.

It held the magazine up and pointed to it, with a smaller hand. "I would like to buy this."

"I—I can't take white people's money. Only dirhams or, or trade."

"Barter," it said, surprising me. "That is when people exchange things of unequal value, and both think