"John Varley - In The Bowl2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

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JOHN VARLEY

In the Bowl

John Varley is from Texas. He lived in California most of his adult life and now makes his home in
Oregon with his family. He started writing science fiction in 1973, is thirty years old, and one
of the most interesting of the newer writers. A large number of people have been predicting great
things for John Varley. He has the narrative gift which is to say that it is impossible to start
reading him without getting caught up in the action behind his words. This, by itself, has always
been an ability much prized among story tellers. But John Varley has something else. His thinking
is the thinking of the seventies; and the ideas, the themes and concepts of his stories are those
of the 1970's. "In the Bowl"-the story by him that follows-is a thematic story, but in typical
Varley fashion, it is a thematic story that will pick you up by the ears and carry you away.
Never buy anything at a secondhand organ bank. And while I'm handing out good advice, don't outfit
yourself for a trip to Venus until you get to Venus.

I wish I had waited. But while shopping around at Coprates a few weeks before my vacation, I
happened on this little shop and was talked into an infraeye at a very good price. What I should
have asked myself was what was an infraeye doing on Mars in the first place?

Think about it. No one wears them on Mars. If you want to see at night, it's much cheaper to buy a
snooperscope. That way you can take the damn thing off when the sun comes up. So this eye must
have come back with a tourist from Venus. And there's no telling how long it sat there in the vat
until this sweet-talking old guy gave me his line about how it belonged to a nice little old
schoolteacher who never . . . ah, well. You've probably heard it before.

If only the damn thing had gone on the blink before I left Venusburg. You know Venusburg: town of
steamy swamps and sleazy hotels where you can get mugged
as you walk down the public streets, lose a fortune at the gaming tables, buy any pleasure in the
known universe, hunt the prehistoric monsters that wallow in the fetid marshes that are . just a
swampbuggy ride out of town. You do? Then you should know that after hours -when they turn all the
holos off and the place reverts to an ordinary cluster of silvery domes sitting in darkness and
eight hundred degree temperature and pressure enough to give you a sinus headache just thinking
about it, when they shut off all the tourist razzle-dazzle -it's no trouble to find your way to
one of the rental agencies around the spaceport and get medicanical work done. They'll accept
Martian money. Your Solar Express Card is honored. Just walk right in, no waiting.

However . . .

I had caught the daily blimp out of Venusburg just hours after I touched down, happy as a clam, my
infraeye working beautifully. By the time I landed in Cui-Cui Town, I was having my first inklings
of trouble. Barely enough to notice; just the faintest hazing in the right-side peripheral vision.
I shrugged it off. I had only three hours in Cui-Cui before the blimp left for Last Chance. I
wanted to look around. I had no intention of wasting my few hours in a body shop getting my eye