JК
Crashlander :: Нивен Ларри
Страница: 7 из 199When I pulled my head out, all the customerswere looking in the same direction. The place had gone startlingly quiet.
I can't blame them for staring. A number of aliens were in the store, mainly shopping for souvenirs, but they were staring, too. A puppeteer is unique. Imagine a headless, three-legged centaur wearing two Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets on its arms and you'll have something like the right picture. But the arms are weaving necks, and the puppets are real heads, flat and brainless, with wide flexible lips. The brain is under a bony hump set between the bases of the necks. This puppeteer wore only its own coat of brown hair, with a mane that extended all the way up its spine to form a thick mat over the brain. I'm told that the way they wear the mane indicates their status in society, but to me it could have been anything from a dockworker to a jeweler to the president of General Products.
I watched with the rest as it came across the floor, not because I'd never seen a puppeteer but because there is something beautiful about the dainty way they move on those slender legs and tiny hooves. I watched it come straight toward me, closer and closer. It stopped a foot away, looked me over, and said, «You are Beowulf Shaeffer, former chief pilot for Nakamura Lines.»
Its voice was a beautiful contralto with not a trace of accent. A puppeteer's months are not only the most flexible speech organs around but also the most sensitive hands. The tongues are forked and pointed; the wide, thick lips have little fingerlike knobs along the rims. Imagine a watchmaker With a sense of taste in his fingertips …
I cleared my throat. «That's right.»
It considered me from two directions. «You would be interested in a high-paying job?»
«I'd be fascinated by a high-paying job.»
«I am our equivalent of the regional president of General Products. Please come with me, and we will discuss this elsewhere.»
I followed it into a displacement booth. Eyes followed me all the way. It was embarrassing being accosted in a public drugstore by a two-headed monster. Maybe the puppeteer knew it. Maybe it was testing me to see how badly I needed money.
My need was great. Eight months had passed since Nakamura Lines had folded. For some time before that I had been living very high on the hog, knowing that my back pay would cover my debts. I never saw that back pay. It was quite a crash, Nakamura Lines. Respectable middleaged businessmen took to leaving their hotel windows without their lift belts. Me, I kept spending.
I can't blame them for staring. A number of aliens were in the store, mainly shopping for souvenirs, but they were staring, too. A puppeteer is unique. Imagine a headless, three-legged centaur wearing two Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent puppets on its arms and you'll have something like the right picture. But the arms are weaving necks, and the puppets are real heads, flat and brainless, with wide flexible lips. The brain is under a bony hump set between the bases of the necks. This puppeteer wore only its own coat of brown hair, with a mane that extended all the way up its spine to form a thick mat over the brain. I'm told that the way they wear the mane indicates their status in society, but to me it could have been anything from a dockworker to a jeweler to the president of General Products.
I watched with the rest as it came across the floor, not because I'd never seen a puppeteer but because there is something beautiful about the dainty way they move on those slender legs and tiny hooves. I watched it come straight toward me, closer and closer. It stopped a foot away, looked me over, and said, «You are Beowulf Shaeffer, former chief pilot for Nakamura Lines.»
Its voice was a beautiful contralto with not a trace of accent. A puppeteer's months are not only the most flexible speech organs around but also the most sensitive hands. The tongues are forked and pointed; the wide, thick lips have little fingerlike knobs along the rims. Imagine a watchmaker With a sense of taste in his fingertips …
I cleared my throat. «That's right.»
It considered me from two directions. «You would be interested in a high-paying job?»
«I'd be fascinated by a high-paying job.»
«I am our equivalent of the regional president of General Products. Please come with me, and we will discuss this elsewhere.»
I followed it into a displacement booth. Eyes followed me all the way. It was embarrassing being accosted in a public drugstore by a two-headed monster. Maybe the puppeteer knew it. Maybe it was testing me to see how badly I needed money.
My need was great. Eight months had passed since Nakamura Lines had folded. For some time before that I had been living very high on the hog, knowing that my back pay would cover my debts. I never saw that back pay. It was quite a crash, Nakamura Lines. Respectable middleaged businessmen took to leaving their hotel windows without their lift belts. Me, I kept spending.