"Robert F. Young - A Glass of Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

A GLASS Of MARS
by ROBERT F. YOUNG
Illustrated by MORROW


He longed for a world that was thousands of years dead—and sacrificed to it all
of today's!

I

Alonzo Shepard, Supervisor of Geologic Records, made a final entry on the Deucalionis Regio data
sheet, replaced the sheet in the D.R. folder, and shoved the folder across the records desk to his
secretary. “File this, Miss Fromm, and we’ll call it a day—it's almost midnight.”
Miss Fromm was a Martian—that is to say, she was a member of the first generation to be born on
Mars. And thought of herself as a native. Shepard, whose residence on the planet fell considerabley short
of one terrestrial year, thought of himself as a trespasser.
Despite her so-called Martian lineage, he also thought of Miss Fromm as one. Watching her as she
walked across the records room and slipped the folder into the file-o-matic cabinet, he compared her
with the exquisite women who had lived on Mars millennia ago during the heyday of its glorious
civilization and who were immortalized in the renovated paintings that hung in the Martian sectiom of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Tall, stacked—in her own words, “a veritable sex-machine”—she suffered
horribly from the ordeal and he enjoyed every minute of her pain. The Martian vineyards he had come no
Mars to help cultivate were never going to bear fruit, and Miss Fromm was one of the little foxes who
had spoiled the vines.
Her chore completed, she returned to the desk and regarded him across its expanse of electronic
recording equipment She exhibited none of the tiredness that should have been hers after the long stint of
overtime she had put in. As always, her dark and lustrous swept-back hair was neatly in place; as always
her gray eyes were agleam with energy and excitement. As always, her cheeks displayed the roseate
glow of a female who is as healthy as a horse.
"Shall I get your coat for you, Mr. Shepard? You look bushed." Annoyed, he got it himself. He hated
to be fussed over, especially by Miss Fromm. After turning out the records-room lights, he accompanied
her to the lift, and they dropped swiftly to the ground floor of the Edom I Geology Building. Presently
they stepped into the deserted street.

Shepard hesitated. This was the first time Miss Fromm had ever worked overtime with him. For that
matter, it was the first time they had ever left the building together. Should he offer to escort her home or
not? Crime wasn't exactly rampant in Edom I, but the hour was late and there were bound to be drunks
abroad.
He attacked the problem obliquely, hoping to outflank it. "Will it be safe for you to go home alone,
Miss Fromm?"
She laughed, displaying a slight hiatus between her front teeth. "My apartment is only two blocks
away —I'm not like you, Mr. Shepard, who puts living in the country above convenience and common
sense."
No, she wasn't like him — and he wasn't like her, either, and he was damned glad of it.
Nevertheless, her remark irked him. "Convenience and common sense aren't everything, Miss Fromm."
She ignored the observation."Why don't you walk home with me anyway? That way, you'll be sure I
get there safe, and we can have beer in my apartment and watch TV."
It was what he had been afraid of. "If I did that, I might miss the last tube car."
"Tube' car-smube car — why should you want to go home when you can sleep with a veritable
sex-machine like me?"