"Frank Herbert - The Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

The Nothing
Frank Herbert, 1956




If it hadn't been for the fight with my father I'd never have gone down to the Tavern and
then I wouldn't have met the Nothing. This Nothing was really just an ordinary looking guy. He
wasn't worth special attention unless, like me, you were pretending you were Maria Graim, the
feelies star, and him Sidney Harch meeting you in the bar to give you a spy capsule.
It was all my father's fault. Imagine him getting angry because I wouldn't take a job burning
brush. What kind of work is that for an eighteen-year-old girl anyway? I know my folks were
hard pressed for money but that was no excuse for the way he lit into me.
We had the fight over lunch but it was after six o'clock before I got the chance to sneak
out of the house. I went down to the Tavern because I knew the old man would be madder
than a tele in a lead barrel when he found out. There was no way I could keep it from him, of
course. He pried me every time I came home.
The Tavern is a crossroads place where the talent gets together to compare notes, and
talk about jobs. I'd only been in there once before, and that time with my father. He warned
me not to go there alone because a lot of the jags used the place. You could smell the stuff
all over the main room. There was pink smoke from a pyro bowl drifting up around the rafters.
Someone had a Venusian Oin filter going. There was a lot of talent there for so early in the
evening.
I found an empty corner of the bar and ordered a blue fire because I'd seen Maria Graim ask
for one in the feelies. The bartender stared at me sharply and I suspected he was a tele, but
he didn't pry. After awhile he floated my drink up to me and 'ported away my money. I sipped
the drink the way I'd seen Maria Graim do, but it was too sweet. I tried not to let my face
show anything.
The bar mirror gave me a good broad view of the room and I kept looking into it as though I
was expecting somebody. Then this big blond young man came through the front door. I saw
him in the mirror and immediately knew be was going to take the seat beside me. I'm not
exactly a prescient, but sometimes those things are obvious. He came across the room,
moving with a gladiator ease between the packed tables. That's when I pretended I was Maria
Graim waiting at a Port Said bar to pick up a spy capsule from Sidney Harch like in the feelie
I'd seen Sunday. This fellow did look a little like Harch-curly hair, dark blue eyes, face all sharp
angles as if it had been chiseled by a sculptor who'd left the job uncompleted.
He took the stool beside me as I'd known he would, and ordered a blue fire, easy on the
sugar. Naturally, I figured this was a get-acquainted gambit and wondered what to say to
him. Suddenly, it struck me as an exciting idea to just ride along with the Maria Graim plot
until it came time to leave.
He couldn't do anything to stop me even if he was a 'porter. You see, I'm a pyro and that's
a good enough defense for anyone. I glanced down at my circa-twenty skirt and shifted until
the slit exposed my garter the way I'd seen Maria Graim do it. This blond lad didn't give it a
tumble. He finished his drink, and ordered another.
I whiffed him for one of the cokes, but he was dry. No jag. The other stuff in the room was
getting through to me, though, and I was feeling dizzy. I knew I'd have to leave soon and I'd
never get another chance to be a Maria Graim type; so I said, 'What's yours?'
Oh, he knew I was talking to him all right, but he didn't even look up. It made me mad. A
girl has some pride and there I'd unbent enough to start the conversation! There was an
ashtray piled with scraps of paper in front of him. I concentrated on it and the paper suddenly