"Henry Kuttner - Clash by Night (SS Collection) UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

'I think it would be unwise. You need the training course.'
'I've had experience-'
Crosby said, 'It would be a favour, Cine Rhys, if you'd skip the red tape. I'd appreciate it. Since my nephew wants to be a soldier, I'd much prefer to see him with the Doones.'
Rhys shrugged. 'Very well, Captain Scott will give you your orders, Kane. Remember that discipline is vitally important with us.'
The boy tried to force back a delighted grin. 'Thank you, sir.'
'Captain-'
Scott rose and nodded to Kane. They went out together. In the anteroom was a telaudio set, and Scott called the Doone's local headquarters in Montana Keep. An integrator answered, his face looking inquiringly from the screen.
'Captain Scott calling, subject induction.'
'Yes, sir. Ready to record.'
Scott drew Kane forward. Thotosnap this man. He'll report to headquarters immediately. Name, Norman Kane. Enlist him without training course - special orders from Cine Rhys.'
'Acknowledged, sir.'
Scott broke the connection. Kane couldn't quite repress his grin.
'All right,' the captain grunted, a sympathetic gleam in his eyes. 'That fixes it. They'll put you in my command. What's your speciality.'
'Flitterboats, sir.'
'Good. One more thing. Don't forget what Cine Rhys said, Kane. Discipline is damned important, and you may not have realized that yet. This isn't a cloak-and-sword war. There are no Charges of Light Brigades. No grandstand plays - that stuff went out with the Crusades. Just obey orders, and you'll have no trouble. Good luck.'
'Thank you, sir.' Kane saluted and strode out with a perceptible swagger. Scott grinned. The kid would have that knocked out of him pretty soon.
A voice at his side made him turn quickly. Ilene Kane was standing there, slim and lovely in her celoflex gown.
'You seem pretty human after all, captain,' she said. 'I heard what you told Norman.'
Scott shrugged. 'I did that for his own good - and the good of the Company. One man off the beam can cause plenty trouble, Mistress Kane.'
'I envy Norman,' she said. 'It must be a fascinating life you lead. I'd like it - for a while. Not for long. I'm one of the useless offshoots of this civilization, not much good for anything. So I've perfected one talent.'
'What's that?'
'Oh, hedonism, I suppose you'd call it. I enjoy myself. It's not often too boring. But I'm a bit bored now. I'd like to talk to you, captain.'
'Well. I'm listening,' Scott said.
Ilene Kane made a small grimace. 'Wrong semantic term. I'd like to get inside of you psychologically. But painlessly. Dinner and dancing. Can do?'
'There's no time,' Scott told her. 'We may get our orders any moment.' He wasn't sure he wanted to go out with this girl of the Keeps, though there was definitely a subtle fascination for him, an appeal he could not analyse. She typified the most pleasurable part of a world he did not know. The other facets of that world could not impinge on him; geopolitics or nonmilitary science held no appeal, were too alien. But all worlds touch at one point - pleasure. Scott could understand the relaxations of the undersea groups, as he could not understand or feel sympathy for their work or their social impulses.
Cine Rhys came through the door-curtain, his eyes narrowed. 'I've some telaudioing to do, captain,' he said. Scott knew what implications the words held: the incipient bargain with Cine Mendez. He nodded.
'Yes, sir. Shall I report to headquarters?'
Rhys' harsh face seemed to relax suddenly as he looked from Ilene to Scott. 'You're free till dawn. I won't need you till then, but report to me at 6 a.m. No doubt you've a few details to clean up.'
'Very well, sir.' Scott watched Rhys go out. The cine had meant Jeana, of course. But Ilene did not know that.
'So?' she asked. 'Do I get a turn-down? You might buy me a drink, anyway.'
There was plenty of time. Scott said, 'It'll be a pleasure,' and Ilene linked her arm with his. They took the dropper to ground-level.
As they came out on one of the ways, Ilene turned her head and caught Scott's glance. 'I forgot something, captain. You may have a previous engagement. I didn't realize-'
'There's nothing,' he said. 'Nothing important.'
It was true; he felt a mild gratitude toward Jeana at the realization. His relationship with her was the peculiar one rendered advisable by his career. Free-marriage was the word for it; Jeana was neither his wife nor his mistress, but something midway between. The Free Companions had no firmly grounded foundation for social life; in the Keeps they were visitors, and in their coastal forts they were - well, soldiers. One would no more bring a woman to a fort than aboard a ship of the line. So the women of the Free Companions lived in the Keeps, moving from one to another as their men did; and because of the ever-present shadow of death, ties were purposely left loose. Jeana and Scott had been free-married for five years now. Neither made demands on the other. No one expected fidelity of a Free Companion. Soldiers lived under such iron disciplines that when they were released, during the brief peacetimes, the pendulum often swung far in the opposite direction.
To Scott, Ilene Kane was a key that might unlock the doors of the Keep - doors that opened to a world of which he was not a part, and which he could not quite understand.
II
I, a stranger and afraid In a world I never made.
-Housman
There were nuances, Scott found, which he had never known existed. A hedonist hike Ilene devoted her life to such nuances; they were her career. Such minor matters as making the powerful, insipid Moonflower Cocktails more palatable by filtering them through lime-soaked sugar held between the teeth. Scott was a uisqueplus man, having the average soldier's contempt for what he termed hydroponic drinks, but the cocktails Ilene suggested were quite as effective as acrid, burning amber uisqueplus. She taught him, that night, such tricks as pausing between glasses to sniff lightly at happy-gas, to mingle sensual excitement with mental by trying the amusement rides designed to give one the violent physical intoxication of breathless speed. Nuances all, which only a girl with Ilene's background could know. She was not representative of Keep life. As she had said, she was an offshoot, a casual and useless flower on the great vine that struck up inexorably to the skies, its strength in its tough, reaching tendrils - scientists and technicians and sociopoliti-cians. She was doomed in her own way, as Scott was in his. The undersea folk served Minerva; Scott served Mars; and Ilene served Aphrodite - not purely the sexual goddess, but the patron of arts and pleasure. Between Scott and Ilene was the difference between Wagner and Strauss; the difference between crashing chords and tinkling arpeggios. In both was a muted bittersweet sadness, seldom realized by either. But that undertone was brought out by then- contact. The sense of dim hopelessness in each responded to the other.
It was carnival, but neither Ilene nor Scott wore masks. Their faces were masks enough, and both had been trained to reserve, though in different ways. Scott's hard mouth kept its tight grimness even when he smiled. And Ilene's smiles came so often that they were meaningless.
Through her, Scott was able to understand more of the undersea life than he had ever done before. She was for him a catalyst. A tacit understanding grew between them, not needing words. Both realized that, in the course of progress, they would eventually die out. Mankind tolerated them because that was necessary for a little time. Each responded differently. Scott served Mars; he served actively; and the girl, who was passive, was attracted by the antithesis.
Scott's drunkenness struck psychically deep. He did not show it. His stiff silver-brown hair was not disarranged, and his hard, burned face was impassive as ever. But when his brown eyes met Ilene's green ones a spark of- something-met between them.
Colour and light and sound. They began to form a pattern now, were not quite meaningless to Scott. They were, long past midnight, sitting in an Olympus, which was a private cosmos. The walls of the room in which they were seemed nonexistent. The gusty tides of grey, faintly luminous clouds seemed to drive chaotically past them, and, dimly, they could hear the muffled screaming of an artificial wind. They had the isolation of the gods.
And the Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep- That was, of course, the theory of the Olympus rooms. No one existed, no world existed, outside of the chamber; values automatically shifted, and inhibitions seemed absurd.
Scott relaxed on a translucent cushion like a cloud. Beside him, Ilene lifted the bit of a happy-gas tube to his nostrils. He shook his head.
'Not now, Ilene.'
She let the tube slide back into its reel. 'Nor I. Too much of anything is unsatisfactory, Brian. There should always be something imtasted, some anticipation left- You have that. I haven't.'
'How?'
'Pleasures - well, there's a limit. There's a limit to human endurance. And eventually I build up a resistance psychi-
cally, as I do physically, to everything. With you, there's always the last adventure. You never know when death will come. You can't plan. Plans are dull; it's the unexpected that's important.'