JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 43 из 199Jinx? The nativesare short, wide, and strong; a sweet little old lady's handshake can crush steel. Even in the Belt, within the solar system, a Belter strip haircut adorns both men and women. But Earth —!
No two looked alike. There were reds and blues and greens, yellows and oranges, plaids and stripes. I'm talking about hair, you understand, and skin. All my life I've used tannin-secretion pills for protection against ultraviolet, so that my skin color has varied from its normal pinkish-white (I'm an albino) to (under blue-white stars) tuxedo black. But I'd never known that other skin-dye pills existed. I stood rooted to the pedwalk, letting it carry me where it would, watching the incredible crowd swarm around me. They were all knees and elbows. Tomorrow I'd have bruises.
«Hey!»
The girl was four or five heads away, and short. I'd never have seen her if everyone else hadn't been short, too. Fladanders rarely top six feet. And there was this girl, her hair a topological explosion in swirling orange and silver, her face a faint, subtle green with space-black eyebrows and lipstick, waving something and shouting at me.
Waving my wallet.
I forced my way to her until we were close enough to touch, until I could hear what she was saying above the crowd noise.
«Stupid! Where's your address? You don't even have a place for a stamp!»
«What?»
She looked startled. «Oh! You're an offworlder.»
«Yeah!» My voice would give out fast at this noise level.
«Well, look …» She shoved her way closer to me. «Look, you can't go around town with an offworlder's wallet. Next time someone picks your pocket he may not notice till you're gone.»
«You picked my pocket?»
«Sure! Think I found it? Would I risk my precious hand under all those spike heels?»
«How if I call a cop?»
«Cop? Oh, a stoneface.» She laughed merrily. «Learn or go under, man. There's no law against picking pockets. Look around you.»
I looked around me, then looked back fast, afraid she'd disappear. Not only my cash but my Bank of Jinx draft for forty thousand stars was in that wallet. Everything I owned.
«See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?» She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. «Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It'll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too.
No two looked alike. There were reds and blues and greens, yellows and oranges, plaids and stripes. I'm talking about hair, you understand, and skin. All my life I've used tannin-secretion pills for protection against ultraviolet, so that my skin color has varied from its normal pinkish-white (I'm an albino) to (under blue-white stars) tuxedo black. But I'd never known that other skin-dye pills existed. I stood rooted to the pedwalk, letting it carry me where it would, watching the incredible crowd swarm around me. They were all knees and elbows. Tomorrow I'd have bruises.
«Hey!»
The girl was four or five heads away, and short. I'd never have seen her if everyone else hadn't been short, too. Fladanders rarely top six feet. And there was this girl, her hair a topological explosion in swirling orange and silver, her face a faint, subtle green with space-black eyebrows and lipstick, waving something and shouting at me.
Waving my wallet.
I forced my way to her until we were close enough to touch, until I could hear what she was saying above the crowd noise.
«Stupid! Where's your address? You don't even have a place for a stamp!»
«What?»
She looked startled. «Oh! You're an offworlder.»
«Yeah!» My voice would give out fast at this noise level.
«Well, look …» She shoved her way closer to me. «Look, you can't go around town with an offworlder's wallet. Next time someone picks your pocket he may not notice till you're gone.»
«You picked my pocket?»
«Sure! Think I found it? Would I risk my precious hand under all those spike heels?»
«How if I call a cop?»
«Cop? Oh, a stoneface.» She laughed merrily. «Learn or go under, man. There's no law against picking pockets. Look around you.»
I looked around me, then looked back fast, afraid she'd disappear. Not only my cash but my Bank of Jinx draft for forty thousand stars was in that wallet. Everything I owned.
«See them all? Sixty-four million people in Los Angeles alone. Eighteen billion in the whole world. Suppose there was a law against picking pockets? How would you enforce it?» She deftly extracted the cash from my wallet and handed the wallet back. «Get yourself a new wallet, and fast. It'll have a place for your address and a window for a tenth-star stamp. Put your address in right away, and a stamp, too.