"Connie Willis - Blued Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

said. "This little dingclinker is my master plan. What do you think of it?"

What Ulric thought of it could not be expressed in words. It outlined a plan for getting c
to Sally Mowen and impress-ing her father based almost entirely on the seduction and
abandonment of young women in key positions at Mowen Chemical. Three-quarters of the w
down he saw Lynn's name.

"What if Mr. Mowen gets hold of this program?" Ulric had said finally.

"Not a look-in chance that that'd happen. I got this pro-gram locked up tighter than a hog
eye. And if anybody else tried to copy it, they'd be sorrier than a coon romancin' a polecat."

Since then Ulric had put in six requests for an apartment, all of which had been turned do
' 'due to restrictive areal housing availability," which Ulric supposed meant there weren't a
empty apartments in Chugwater. All of the turndowns were initialed by Mr. Mowen's
secretary, and there were moments when Ulric thought that Mr. Mowen knew about "Projec
Sally" after all and had hired Ulric to keep Brad away from his daughter.

"According to my program, it's time to go to work on Sally," Brad said now. "Tomorrow
this press conference. I'm enough of a rumbustigator with this waste-emissions project to
dazzlefy Old Man Mowen. Sally's going to be there. I got my fiancee Gail in publicity to in
her."

"I'm going to be there, too," Ulric said belligerently.
 "Now, that's right lucky," Brad said. "You can do a little honeyfuggling for me. Work on
Sally while I give Pappy Mowen the glad hand. Do you know what she looks like?"

"I have no intention of honeyfuggling Sally Mowen for you," Ulric said, and wondered a
where Brad managed to pick up all these slang expressions. He had caught Brad watching J
Canova movies on TV a couple of times, but some of these words weren't even in Mencken
probably had a computer program that generated them. "In fact, I intend to tell her you're
engaged to more than one person already."

"Boy, you're sure wadgetty," Brad said. "And you know why? Because you don't have a
of your own. Tell you what, you pick out one of mine, and I'll give her to you. How about
Sue?"

Ulric walked over to the window. "I don't want her," he said.

"I bet you don't even know which one she is," Brad said.

I don't, Ulric thought. They all sound exactly alike. They use "interface" as a verb and
"support" as an adjective. One of them had called for Brad and when Ulric told her he was
over at Research, she had said, "Sorry. My wetware's non-functional this morning." Ulric f
as if he were living in a foreign country.

"What difference does it make?" Ulric said angrily. "Not one of them speaks English, wh
is probably why they're all dumb enough to think they're engaged to you."

"How about if I get you a gal who speaks English and you honeyfuggle Sally Mowen for