Страница 101 из 143
I have a short list of things I never do, and right near the top is surrendering to emotional blackmail. If there's a worse kind of sex than the charity fuck, I haven't heard about it. And her words could be read as the worst kind of whipped-puppy appeal and dammit, okay, she did have a right to act like a whipped puppy but I hate whipped puppies, I want to kick them for letting themselves be whipped… only the words didn't come out like that, not out of that straight-backed, dry-eyed beanpole over there against the blazing sky. She'd grown since I met her, and I thought this was part of the growth. Why she'd picked me to unload on I don't know, but the way she'd done it flattered me rather than obligated me.
So I told her no. Or would have, in a perfect world where I actually follow my short list of things I never do. What I did instead was get up and put my arms around her from behind and say:
"You handled that very well. If you'd cried, I'd have kicked your butt all the way to King City."
"I won't cry. Not about that, not anymore. And not when it's over."
And she didn't.
Brenda had arranged for our moment of privacy by not telling me Cricket had been assigned to cover the festivities at Armstrong Park. After our little romantic interlude-quite pleasant, thanks for asking-she confessed her ruse, and also that he was going to play hooky after the first few hours and should be arriving any minute, so let's get dressed, okay?
I can't imagine why I worried about getting a head start on Liz. She got a head start on all of us, drinking on her way out to Armstrong and all the way back, as if Cricket needed any more causes for alarm.
She came barreling across the dunes in a four-wheel Aston Assbuster, model XJ, with a reaction engine and a bilious tangerine-flake paint job. This was the baby with four-point jets for boosting over those little potholes you sometimes find on Luna-say, something about the size of Copernicus. It couldn't actually reach orbit, but it was a near thing. She had decorated it with her usual understated British good taste: holographic flames belching from the wheel wells, a whip ante
This apparition came skidding around the Heinlein and headed straight for us. Brenda stood and waved her arms frantically and I had time to ponder how thin a soap bubble a Girl Scout tent really was before Liz hit the brakes and threw a spray of powdered green cheese against the tent wall.
She was out before the fuzzy dice stopped swinging, and ran around to the left side to unbelt Cricket, who'd strapped himself tight enough to risk gangrene of the pelvis. She picked him up and stuffed him in the airlock, where he seemed to come to his senses. He crawled inside the tent, but instead of standing he just hunkered there and I began to be concerned. I helped him off with his helmet.
"Cricket's a little under the weather," Liz said, over Cricket's suit radio. "I thought I ought to get him inside quick."
I realized he was saying something so I put my ear close to his lips and he was muttering I think I'm go
We were getting a little water into him when Liz came through the lock, pushing a Press-U-Ke
"You maniac!" he shouted. "Why the hell wouldn't you slow down?"
"'Cause you told me you were getting sick. I figured I better get you here quick as I could."
"I was sick because you were going so fast!" But then the fight drained out of him and he sat down, shaking his head. "Fast? Did I say fast? We came all the way from Armstrong, and I think she touched ground four times." He explored his head with his fingers. "No, five times, I count five lumps. She'd just look for a steep crater wall and say 'Let's see can we jump over this sucker,' and the next thing I knew we'd be flying."
"We were moving along," Liz agreed. "I figure our shadow ought to be catching up with us about now."
"'Thank god for the gyros,' I said. You remember I said that? And you said 'What gyros? Gyros are for old ladies.'"
"I took 'em off," Liz told us. "That way you get more practice using the steering jets. Come on, Cricket, you-"
"I'm going back with you guys," Cricket said. "No way I'm ever riding with that crazy person again."
"We only have two seats," Brenda said.
"Strap me to the fender, I don't care. It couldn't be worse than what I just went through."
"I think that calls for a drink," Liz said.
"You think everything calls for a drink."
"Doesn't it?"
But before going out to bring in her portable bar she took the time to release her-what else?-English bulldog, Winston, from the ke
It could have spoiled the begi
Eighteen hours is a long time for a party, but there is a certain type of person with a perverse urge not to be the first to call it quits. All four of us were that type of person. We were going to stick it out, by god, right through to the playing of the Guatemalan National Anthem ("Guatemala, blest land, home of happy race,/ May thine altars profaned be never;/ No yoke of slavery weigh on thee ever/ Nor may tyrants e'er spit in thy face!").
(Yes, I looked at the globe, too, and if you think the whole planet was going to stay up six hours for the national hymn of Tonga, you're crazier than we were. Tonga got in her licks just after Western Samoa.)
No one was going to catch up with Liz, but we were soon matching her, and after a while Cricket even forgot he was mad at her. Things got a bit hazy as the celebration wore on. I can't actually remember much after the Union Jack blazed in all its Brita
O Lord our God arise,
Scatter her enemies,
And make them fall:
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,
On Thee our hopes we fix:
God save us all!
"God save us all, indeed," Cricket said.
"That's the most beautiful thing I ever heard," Liz sobbed, with the easy tears of the veteran drunk. "And I think Winston needs to go wee-wee."
The mutt did seem in some distress. Liz had given him a bowl or two of Gui