"James Patrick Kelly - Dividing the Sustain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

Little Chin.

Sandor, Nelly, and Zola, his podmates on the ship, did not greet his deci-sion
to recast as a homosexual with much enthusiasm. To become full-fledged
Consensualists, the colonists had agreed to a personality dampening that would
smooth away the sharper edges of their individuality. The treatment chilled passion
into fondness, anger into simple annoyance. To get Been a berth on the Nine Ball,
his client had provided forged records showing he’d had the treatment, had invented
as well a resume as a genetic agronomist. But poor Sandor had certainly been
dampened. In his own diffident way, he made it clear that he had no intention of
redirecting what little sex drive he could muster toward Been. And presumably once
he was gay, Been would not be spending any time in the sleep hutch that Nelly and
Zola shared. The two women in Been’s pod had their own sexual arrangement. They
would occasionally invite either Been or Sandor to their hutch, although spending the
night with the two of them was more work than swimming the Straits of Sweven in a
spacesuit. It took Been hours to recover, while Sandor was usually pale and wobbly
for a day afterward. If Been became gay, it would put a fatal kink in the sexual
consensus of their pod.

Which was his plan exactly.

“I’m going to ask you a question,” said Sandor, “and I want you to con-sider
it in the spirit in which I am posing it, that is, without malice and with a genuine
fondness for you as a person.”

“Are you asking him or making a speech?” Nelly had wrapped herself in her
comfort rug so that only her head showed.

“Did you want to handle this?” Sandor clutched his mug of coffee as if
worried it might wrench itself out of his grasp and fly at someone. “No, I didn’t
think so.” Been could tell how upset the others were by the way they were letting
their manners slip. The three of them ought to report them-selves to their harmony
circles, but Been knew they wouldn’t. “Well, then, Been,” said Sandor, “how do
you see yourself functioning as a member of our pod if you adopt this new sexual
orientation? Because, forgive me for being frank, it seems to me that this unilateral
action on your part is not in harmony with the principles of Consensualism.” He
took a careful sip from the mug.

“I don’t understand.” Been pushed off the couch. “I’ve been living with you
since we left orbit around Nonny’s Home.” In four quick steps, he had paced from
one end of the common room to the other. “Have I been doing something all this
time that bothered you?”

“Beenie,” said Zola, “this pod has as much need for a gay man as we have for
a singing kangaroo.” She grinned at him from the tiny food prep bay as she melted
her own coffee cup back into the counter. “We just wonder why you aren’t thinking
about that.”

“Is that all I am to you, a hard cock?”