"Joe Haldeman - Buying Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

enough to see a few pink dots on the rocks. Sunbathing in shadow, this late in the afternoon. The cabby
said the female population, though he didn't use that term exactly, doubled when the beach was in shade.
Made sense to me.
"You Yanks don't have anything like this, eh?"
"Not so public," I said, "except in California." He angled into the southernmost part of the beach, and
dropped speed to where we were just barely off the water; then cruised slowly up. He and Merle waved
and the shade-bathers waved back. The polite gentlemen waved their hands.
Claudia's place was about two kilometers north of the beach. It was conspicuous even from that distance.
Cantilevered out over the water with no supports below, an extravagant display of space stuff. No
earthly material could take the strain; it must have been those carbon filaments or something. I don't
keep up on it.
A bright red warning strobed on the windshield: APPROACH LANDSIDE. With a noisy surge the
cabby banked to the left and climbed, missing the roofs of cliffside dwellings by a few meters. People
who had moved out here for peace and quiet.

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 BUYING TIME - Joe Haldeman



Another red strobe: HOVER UNTIL GREEN. "God damn," he said. "Wonder what they'd do if I tried to
come in?"
Merle was fascinated. "Wanna try?"
"Let's not," I said.
The cabby laughed. The vehicle bobbed in a good imitation of a small boat in a heavy sea, the rotor
building up to a banshee scream. An impressive entry, APPROACH NOW, the green strobe said.
He set it down pretty smoothly on the redwood deck; blessed silence when the rotor disengaged. The tab
was fifty dollars; I punched sixty, and the driver nodded vacantly, staring at our welcoming party. There
was an exceedingly pretty woman, wearing about five square centimeters' more clothing than the shade-
bathers, and a nice smile—and two frowning gorillas cradling H & R assault lasers. It wasn't legal for
private citizens to own them in Australia.
"Mr. Barr," the young lady said, "come with me. Everyone is having drinks by the pool." She looked at
Merle. "Mr … ?"
"Browning. I'm Mr. Barr's bodyguard." The cabby raised a couple of eyebrows at this, and noisily
engaged the rotor.
"Go with these gentlemen, please."
"Uh, I don't think—"
"It's okay, Browning," one of the gorillas said. "Bodyguards got their own party." I nodded, and Merle
went off, looking doubtful.
The pretty one introduced herself as Cynthia—"Call me Sin," all right—Claudia Fine's mate. Unless my
instinct was off, she wasn't immortal, not yet. All original equipment. Low mileage, one owner. Oiled
regularly.
The pool was spectacular, a crystal bowl a couple of meters deep by twenty in diameter, floating
suspended at eye level in an elaborate sprawling rock garden. Pretty things of both genders swam naked
in the clear water; whenever someone dived from the edge, the pool bobbed slightly. So it was held in
place by a tractor/pressor field. Expensive.
"Dallas. It's been forever!" Claudia was dressed in her usual restrained style, or undressed: nothing from
the breasts up, and only a silver sheen of body metal from the bottom of her breasts down. Head shaved
up to a medusa ruff crown (some electrostatic thing kept it writhing slowly).
Her kiss was strawberry. She turned around and stood gracefully on one toe, displaying. "How do you