Stasheff, Christopher Starship Troupers 3. A Slight Detour

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

" 'Of course'?" Barry leaned forward. "There are other reasons, then?"
"Aye. It brings profit."
Barry stared. So did I.
Then Barry shook himself. "Is that alone sufficient reason for the deacons to endorse the activity?"
"Of course! Does the Bible not set that as reason for doing or not doing? Does not Ecclesiastes say,
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...tarship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (39 of 260)20-2-2006 23:31:58
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
'What shall it profit a man that he labor long under the sun'?"
" 'What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, but lose his immortal soul'?" I murmured.
He turned to me, eye quickening with interest. "Ah, then, you've read your Bible!"
"I have read it," I acknowledged, "but I am certainly no scholar."
The spaceman nodded. "A becoming modesty, sir, becoming!"
As modesty, the statement was indeed becoming, and would probably never arrive. "Is anything
that brings profit right, then?"
"Aye, if 'tis true profit." He raised an admonishing forefinger. "Mind you, gambling is not for
though there is a chance of profit, there is far more chance of losing your capital."
"As there is with entertainments," Barry suggested.
"What music?" The man shrugged impatiently. "There's no great cost, only the price of an
instrument."
"But it encourages people to dance," I pointed out.
He nodded. " 'Tis good excercise, that profits the body."
I gathered he was not speaking about slow dancing. I had the good sense not to ask.
"Have you been to Terra?" Barry asked.
The man wrinkled his nose. "The fleshpots of corruption? Aye."
"They have entertainments there, such as 3DT spectacles .. ."
"Oh, we have them here!" The man sat back, comfortable in his sophistication. "Easter would not
be Easter without the Oberammergau Passion Play."
"Surely not." Barry paled a trifle. "Of course, to be at Oberammergau in person, to watch as they
performed it & "
The spacehand's eyes kindled. "Aye, that would be excellent!"
So they did not object to live theater per se, then as long as its subject was spiritual.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...tarship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (40 of 260)20-2-2006 23:31:58
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
Barry leaned back. "The live theatrical displays in New York, now "
"Sinks of sin!" the man said promptly. "And if we'd any doubts of it, Elector Rudders has reminded
us all, three months past! We heard and saw him on 3DT, denouncing the immorality of it!"
"Indeed." Barry was quite pale now, and I was not feeling any too enthusiastic myself. "However, I
understand that the theatrical producers do make a handsome profit . .."
"They could not, if none went to cast away their hard-earned brass on such a waste of time!" The
man smiled, at ease, glancing out the window. "Aye, 'tis good to be back on Citadel, where such
nonsense would not be tolerated."
"Is it indeed?" Barry whispered.
4
They made us take the customs tunnel slow, ostensibly to make good and sure we didn't have any
contraband. I wondered if their sensors really could pick up drugs and alcohol. Even if they could, they
had to be able to work faster than that.
Lacey came out with her skirts flouncing and her face burning.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"Those hormonal hypocrites!" she hissed. "They just made us go slowly so mat they could get a
good look at Suzanne and me with X-ray vision!"
Personally, I didn't think the customs officers were going to get turned on by skeletons, no matter
how feminine but you never can tell. Besides, I remembered how flesh shows up as a ghostly image on
X-ray plates, and decided to play it safe. "You don't suppose they could really get excited by looking at a
foggy image on a low-resolution viewscreen, do you?"
"When they've been completely deprived of the sight of the female form divine for all their lives?"
she returned. "You bet a ghostly image could turn them on! Besides, what makes you mink it's all that
ghostly? For all you know, they could have 3DT screens in full living color, with high resolution that
shows every detail! They could have had sensor after sensor showing us first as we look to the eye, then
without our outer gowns just our slips and so on! An electronic striptease! They might even have
recorded it to drool over at home!"
What could I say? She might have been right. Though personally, I think she was showing an
excellent imagination. First time she'd showed any sign of it, too.
Of course, it could have just been conceit.
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...tarship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (41 of 260)20-2-2006 23:31:58
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
But Suzanne came out blushing and shuddering, with her arms clasped about her.
"What's the matter?" I was instantly hovering, ready to comfort.
"Must be my imagination," she muttered.
"What must?"
"I kept thinking those men were watching me on their viewscreens and drooling as they looked
through my clothing. Isn't that silly of me? It's impossible, isn't it?"
I decided Lacey might have had a point, but all I said, "The kind of surveillance they're giving us
would be enough to make anyone feel a little paranoid." The girls had me wondering, though, if they
were the only ones who had been scanned so thoroughly.
Larry came out red-faced and snarling. "Don't think I'm going to thank you, Ramou!"
"Wouldn't think of it," I said slowly. "Why just because that bank of sensors would have detected
every cigarette, every bit of paper, every holo cube you had on you? Of course I wouldn't expect
thanks."
"Fortunate, because you're not going to have any! Ugh I suppose I might say you've made up for
your boorishness at the beginning of the trip."
I clamped my jaw shut, repressing the urge to be boorish again to the point of giving him a valid
insurance claim :or a new set of teeth. With any luck, he probably didn't n have Partial Medical. "Think
nothing of it, Larry me -ad. Not being dragged off to jail with you is thanks enough for me."
Suzanne looked from one to the other of us. "Am I missing something here?"
"Yes," Lacey said, "and from what I can see, we should be glad of it. Let the boys play their silly
games, Suzanne. We don't have to join in."
They might not have had much choice, if Larry had walked through customs with the load he'd
been carrying. I wouldn't have put it past the Citadelites to clap us all into irons on the general principle
that if one of us was willing to break the law, the rest of us just hadn't had the chance yet. Guilt by
association, and from their point of view, we were probably a guilty association. If one of us reflected on
all, I certainly didn't want Larry's face reflecting into mine.
Marty came out whistling, though.
Suzanne stared. "That didn't bother you?"
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruisw...tarship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt (42 of 260)20-2-2006 23:31:58
file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswijk/Mijn%20do...sheff%20-%20Starship%20Troopers%203%20-%20A%20Slight%20Detour.txt
"Hey, I'll take all the attention I can get! I just love it when somebody's sure I've done something,
but they can't tell what."
"But you haven't," Larry objected.
"Makes it even more fun. Know why they hide inside a booth with the viewscreens?
"The better to watch us, my dear," Lacey said sourly.
"No, because they knew Mamie was coming, and they didn't want to be there when she exploded." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podobne