"James Tiptree Jr. -10000 Light Years From Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tiptree James Jr)

babble mounted; a few cooler heads pointed out that nobody really knew where CroMagnon came from,
and he had apparently interbred with other types. Well, it’s an old story now, but those were dizzy days.
True to human form, I was giving the grand flip-flop of history about two percent of my attention. To
begin with, I was busy. We were fighting out a balanced representation of earth scientific specialists with
all the other nations who had delegations in the visiting party to Luna. It was to be a spectacular talent
show—everything from particle physics, molecular genetics, math theory, eco-systems down to a lad
from Chile who combined musical notation analysis, icthyology and cooking. And every one of them
handsome and certified heterosexual. And equipped with enough circuitry to—well, assist their unaided
powers of observation and report. Even in the general euphoric haze somebody had stayed cool enough
to realize the boys just might not get back. Quite a job to do in two weeks.
But that again was background to a purely personal concern. The Monday before the party took off
Tillie and the Girls came through D.C. I cornered her in the film vault.
“Will you receive a message in a sanitized container?”
She was picking at a band-aid over a shot-puncture some idiot had given her. (What the hell kind of
immunization did the medicos think they had for assignments on the moon?) One eye peeked at me. She
knew she was guilty, all right.
“You think your big playmates are just like yourself, only gloriously immune from rape. I wouldn’t be
surprised if you weren’t thinking of going home with them. Right? No, don’t tell me, kid, I know you. But
you don’t know them. You think you do, but you don’t. Did you ever meet any American blacks who
moved to Kenya? Talk to one some time. And there’s another thing you haven’t thought about—two
hundred and fifty thousand miles of hard vacuum. A quarter of a million miles away. The Marines can’t
get you out of this one, baby.”
“So?”
“All right. I just want to get it through to you—assuming there is a human being under that
silicon—that out here is another human being who’s worried sick about you. Does that get through? At
all?”
She gave me a long look as though she were trying to make out a distant rider on a lonesome plain.
Then her lashes dropped.
The rest of the day I was busy with our transmitting arrangements from—actually—Timbuctu. The
Russians had offered to boost the party up in sections in six weeks, but Captain Lyampka, after a few
thoughtful compliments, had waved that off. They would just send down their cargo lighter—no trouble at
all, if we would point out a convenient desert to absorb the blast. Hence Timbuctu. The Capellan party
was spending two nights in D.C. en route there.
They were lodged in the big hotel complex near our office and adjoining Rock Creek Park. That
was how I came to find out what Capellan did in parks.
It was a damn fool thing, to trail them. Actually I just hung around the park input. About two A.M. I
was sitting on a bench in the moonlight, telling myself to give it up. I was gritty-eyed tired. When I heard
them coming I was too late to take cover. It was the two J.O.’s. Two beautiful girls in the moonlight.
Two big girls, coming fast. I stood up.
“Good evening!” I essayed in Capellan.
A ripple of delighted laughter, and they were towering over me.
Feeling idiotic, I got out my cigarillos and offered them around. The first mate took one and sat
down on the bench. Her eyes came level with mine.
I clicked my lighter. She laughed and laid the cigarillo down. I made a poor job of lighting mine.
There is a primal nightmare lurking deep in in most men, having to do with his essential maleness. With
violation thereof. I’d gone through life without getting more than a glimpse of it, but this situation was
bringing cold fingers right up into my throat. I essayed a sort of farewell bow. They laughed and bowed
back. I had a clear line of exit to right rear. I took a step backward.
A hand like a log fell on my shoulders. The navigator leaned down and said something in a velvety
contralto. I didn’t need a translator—I’d seen enough old flicks: “Don’t go ’way, baby, we won’t hurt