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

stations, and I made more personal appearances, and eventually the tapes were shipped off to
out-planets like Black Dirt that didn't have 3V yet but that did have local theatres where the tapes could
be run along with old, old movies, and, well, I tagged along as usual for more personal appearances and
finally I ended up here in The Last Of The Mohicans where the proprietor of the local hotel offered me a
job for life if I'd play Zonda of the Amazon once a week for the benefit of his bar trade. By that time I
was sick of being Zonda. But I was even sicker of traveling from one sad stand to another, so I took him
up on his offer."
"What do you have to do?" Hayes asked.
"Three times each Saturday night I swing across the barroom on a make-believe grapevine, land on
the bar, give the victory cry of a Centaurian jungle girl, and fight off the dirt farmers."
"Is this your living room?"
She nodded. "But don't feel that you're inconveniencing me, Mr. Hayes. I never use it."
"Why didn't you pack me off to the nearest charity ward and have done with me?"
"I thought you'd be better off here. Out-planet hospitals are understaffed and half of the time they
don't even have the medical supplies they need." She glanced at the clock on the table. "I'll have to be
going now, Mr. Hayes. It's almost time for Zonda's first aerial maneuver. Bar-rag will keep you company
till you fall asleep. Won't you, Bar-rag?"
At the sound of its name, the little doggone materialized on the bed, joyously winding and unwinding
its tail. "Rowp!" it said to Hayes, and licked his cheek. Hayes grinned. "I need a shave, don't I?" he said.
"I'll have a barber come in tomorrow. While he's at it, he can give you a haircut, too." Moira dimmed
the light. "Good night, Mr. Hayes."
"Good night," Hayes said.
After site had gone, he let his head sink deep into the pillow. He was weary and he was weak, and
he felt as though he could go on lying there forever. There was no sound save for the remote thumping of
a stereo in the bar below, and the soft susurrus of Bar-rag's breathing. Beyond the diamond-patterned
windowpanes, a streetlight caught glistening particles of gently falling snow ... In Old York, it would be
summer. It was always summer in Old York, with balmy winds blowing in from the rerouted Gulf Stream
and breathing up the revamped avenues. The open-air little theatres around Teletheatre Square would be
in full swing. NOW PLAYING: The Two-Sided Triangle, with Leslie Lake and Humpty Dumpty
Hayes. No, not Humpty Dumpty Hayes. Humpty Dumpty Hayes had had a great fall—remember? And
all the King's horses and all the King's men hadn't bothered to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Hayes closed his eyes against the sudden bleakness of the ceiling. Desperately, he reached out and
touched Bar-rag's glossy back. The little animal curled up in the crook of his arm. It was all right then,
and he knew that tonight at least he could sleep. NOW PLAYING, he thought drowsily: The Last of the
Mohicans Hotel, with Bar-rag, Zonda of the Amazon, and Humpty Dumpty Hayes ...

III

There were times after that when he wanted a drink, when he begged for a drink, when he cried out
for a drink and raved when Moira would not bring him one and locked the door behind her. Once when
she came upstairs after her Zonda routine he was waiting for her in the shadows, and when she came into
the room, he seized her throat and went tumbling with her to the floor, threatening to kill her unless she
promised to go back down to the bar and get him a bottle.
He was still pitifully weak. It would have been no trick at all for her to have broken his grip and flung
him aside but she didn't. Instead, she lay there immobile, and after a while, she said, "Go ahead,
Nick—choke me. What are you waiting for?" His hands fell away then, and he sat there sick and
ashamed on the floor till she got up and helped him back into bed.
When she brought him his breakfast the next morning, she sat down beside the bed and talked to him
as though nothing had happened. He couldn't stand it. "For God's sake, why don't you throw me out and
have done with me!" he said.