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

me?" Brad said. He turned to the terminal and began typing furiously. "What exactly do you
want?"

Ulric clenched his fists and looked out the window. The dead cottonwood under the
window had a kite or something caught in its branches. He debated climbing down the tree
walking over to Mr. Mowen's office to demand an apartment.

"Makes no never mind," Brad said when he didn't answer. "I've heard you oratin' often
enough on the subject." He typed a minute more and hit the print button. "There," he said.

Ulric turned around.

Brad read from the monitor,'' 'Wanted: Young woman who can generate enthusiasm for t
Queen's English, needs to use correct grammar and syntax, no gobbledygook, no slang, resp
for the language. Signed, Ulric Henry.' What do you think of that? It's the spittin' image of th
way you talk."

"I can find my own 'gals,' " Ulric said. He yanked the sheet of paper as it was still comin
out of the printer, ripping over half the sheet in a long ragged diagonal. Now it read, "Want
Young woman who can generate language. Ulric H"

"I'll swap you horses," Brad said. "If this don't rope you in a nice little filly, I'll give you
Lynn when she gets back.

It'll cheer her up, after getting her name taken off the project and all. What do you think o
that?"

Ulric put the scrap of paper down carefully on the table, trying to resist the impulse to w
it up and cram it down Brad's throat. He slammed the window up. There was a sudden burs
chilly wind, and the paper on the table balanced uneasily and then drifted onto the window

"What if Lynn misses her plane in Cheyenne?" Ulric said. "What if she comes back here
runs into one of your other fiancees?''

"No chance on the map," Brad said cheerfully. "I got me a program for that, too." He tor
rest of the paper out of the printer and wadded it up. "Two of my fiancees come callin' at th
same time, they have to come up in the eleva-tors, and there's only two of" them. They work
the same signals, so I made me up a program that stops the elevators between floors if my
security code gets read in more than once in an hour. It makes an override beep go off on m
terminal, too, so's I can soft-shoe the first gal down the back stairs." He stood up. "I gotta g
over to Research and check on the waste-emissions project again. You better find yourself
gal right quick. You're givin' me the flit-flats with all this unfriendly talk."

He grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and went out. He slammed the door, perhap
because he had the flit-flats, and the resultant breeze hit the scrap of paper on the window-
and sailed it neatly out the window.

"Flit-flats," Ulric mumbled to himself, and tried to call Mowen's office. The line was bu

Sally Mowen called her father as soon as she got home. "Hi, Janice," she said. "Is Dad