"Robert F. Young - Little Dog Gone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

Two-Sided Triangle. Even if you were still living in New North Dakota you wouldn't have seen me."
Hayes crashed his fist on the table. "And do you know why you wouldn't have seen me, Moira? You
wouldn't have seen me because on Debut night, I showed up as drunk as a spaceman on three-weeks'
leave and got myself thrown out of teletheatre. And it was just what I had coining, too. Because you see,
Moira my dear, that was far from the first time I had shown up as drunk as a spaceman on three-weeks'
leave—
far from the first time Humpty Dumpty Hayes had had a great fall. Only this time, Christopher King's
horses and Christopher King's men didn't bother to put Humpty Dumpty back together again with
alco-antidotes and souped-up sugar pills. By this time they were as sick of him as he was of himself. So
they told him that if he wanted to be put back together again, he would have to do the job himself. So he
burned his bridges behind him, invested in a super-binge, climbed aboard and blasted off for the stars on
a mission he has since forgotten and no longer wants to remember. For God's sake, bring him a bottle
and let him bow out in peace!"
It was the flattest, most uncompromising "no" that Hayes had ever heard in all his life. It brought him
to his feet—and to his undoing. This time, when the room started to turn upside down, he could not stop
it. Giddiness washed over him like gray surf, and beyond the surf, blackness roiled ... And now, the
blackness began swirling around his legs. Up, up, it swirled, and he called out "Leslie!" in a
semi-strangled voice. However, it was not sophisticated dark-haired Leslie who leaped through the
gathering night to his side, but a tall blonde girl with anxious eyes. He felt strong arms supporting him as
he sank into nothingness, and just before the nothingness became complete, he felt her fingers touch his
face.
There were jumbled phrases of warmth and cold, of darkness and light. Sometimes the bedroom in
which he lay played host to a blonde girl wearing a print dress—and once in a while to the same girl
wearing a jaguar-skin sarong—and frequently to a coarse, bearded man with chest-prodding
fingers—and always, it seemed, to a small, mist-gray animal with bar-rag ears, rotating tail, and
worshipful golden eyes. Finally there were late mornings and long, sunny afternoons, and sometimes
snow falling lazily beyond diamond-patterned window-panes.
The bedroom was not a large one. Strictly speaking, it was not a bedroom at all, but a
commandeered living room. There was a sofa and there were chairs and there was a small table on which
stood a lamp, a clock and a copy of R. E. Hames' Stellar Geography. The only incongruous item was
the bed. It was high and narrow and it had obviously been borrowed from the local frontier hospital. It
stood out among the endemic furniture like a bedsheeted barge floating down a nonexistent river.
One night, the girl in the jaguar skin came out of the shadows and gazed down upon his face. "Dr.
Grimes says you're much better," she said. "I'm glad."
"You're Moira, aren't you?" Hayes said.
"Not when I wear my costume. When I wear my costume I'm Zonda of the Amazon, the Amazon in
this case being the big river of the same name in the wilds of Alpha Centauri 9. Haven't you ever heard of
Zonda of the Amazon, Mr. Hayes?"
"I can't say as I have."
"She was the main character of an earthside 3V show of the same title. They chose me for the role
because they needed a big blonde and didn't in the least mind if she fell considerably short of being a
second Sarah Bernhardt. I used to swing through trees on fake grapevines and win friends and influence
animals and utter sparkling lines such as `Zonda hungry' and `Zonda save you—you no fear.' For a poor
girl from New North Dakota, Mars, who couldn't act her way out of a plastic bag, I did all right for
myself for a while. And then the series was canceled, and I found myself out in the cold, because big
blondes who can't act are no more in demand in Videoville than they used to be in Hollywood. But I'd
saved enough money to last me until the reruns began and checks started coming through again. And
after the reruns came the repeat-reruns. And after that the series was sold successively to just about
every earthside station on the network, and I began making personal appearances in local studios for the
benefit of the kids who still remembered me. Then the series was sold successively to the Martian