[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
was more likely to date the quiet ones with glasses who read a lot. Some had
never had a date before her. Yet they invariably left her for her friends as soon as
she d built up their confidence to a level where they dared ask someone else for a
date.
In truth, she scared hell out of everyone who tried to take her seriously. She was
intelligent, she talked a lot, and she was interested in everything. She wrote for
the school paper. She did so much extra classwork that she could get an A in any
subject even if she turned in a blank final exam. She earned real money at such
unfeminine activities as buying stale bread and reselling it to chicken farmers. In
short, she was real competition for any boy she met, and the ones she liked were
never secure enough to survive that threat.
When she was sixteen and a senior at John Mar-shall High, she met Fred Linker
in the school library. Fred had never had a date in his life and was ter-rified of
girls. Gwen was a bit cynical about men by that time, but she was enough of a
product of her culture to wish she had someone to take her on dates. Fred seemed
perfect. He wasn t at all bad looking, just shy. He liked to read and knew of
works like Silverlock that she adored as soon as he told her about them. He was a
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...20Pournelle%20-%2001%20-%20Janissaries.html (33 of 184) [12/29/2004 12:13:08 AM]
JANISSARIES
good listener, and they shared many opinions. So she worked on him until he
asked her out, and three dates later, he got the nerve to kiss her goodnight. He
didn t know how to do that very well, but Gwen was a good teacher. She d found
books that told how.
Fred wanted to be a writer. He wrote constantly. Someday he d sell a story. He
was certain of it. He d even sent a few off to magazines and got rejection slips.
Gwen read the magazines Fred liked, and three weeks later got a short story
accepted in one of his favorites. She thought he d be proud of her, and she knew
she could show him how he could sell, too it was only a matter of studying the
editor s prejudices but a week after that Fred took another girl to the sock hop.
Later he sold three stories him-self, but he never asked Gwen out again.
College hadn t been much different. Gwen s phys-ical urges got stronger, and
sometimes she was so lonely she d read in an all-night restaurant rather than sit in
her room; so lonely that she made resolu-tions about not competing with the next
man she liked. She even tried to carry them out. It did no good. Even when she
didn t actually do whatever her current boyfriend thought he was good at,
even-tually it would come out that she could if she wanted to.
Or maybe, she told herself as she dressed in her compulsively neat one-room
apartment, maybe that s all wrong. Maybe they just didn t like me in the first
place. God knows there must be something wrong with me.
I m not ugly. She studied herself in the mirror. Too short, yes. Five foot two and
eyes of blue sounds very good in songs, but in fact that s pretty short, and besides
my eyes are more greenish-brown. Nose too pointed, face too angular, but there
are plenty of girls with longer and pointier noses and they aren t ugly. And I ve
got all the right equipment. Not a lot of it, but in good proportion. I bounce all
right if I go without a bra, and my hips aren t bony. I don t wear clothes well
because I m too thin, but I don t look too bad. Men don t turn away.
And everyone tells me I talk well. I m bright and witty. They say it just after we
meet, and just as they re walking out.
But this time it s different.
She dressed carefully. This time for sure, she thought. Things will happen tonight.
She felt a de-licious sensation of anticipation. Maybe this will last, she thought.
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...20Pournelle%20-%2001%20-%20Janissaries.html (34 of 184) [12/29/2004 12:13:08 AM]
JANISSARIES
Please. Let it last.
She grinned at her image in the mirror. To whom was she praying? Her image of
the universe had room in it for a god, but not one who paid much attention to that
kind of prayer. If prayer worked, there were a lot of people worse off than Gwen
Tre-maine praying their arses off. They didn t get what they wanted. Why should
she?
But there was a chance. Les was different.
She d met him in an all-night coffee shop near the university library. It had been
quite late, and she was ready to go home. She was carrying a half dozen books,
and he d seen the anthropology book. That looks like a new one, he d said. I
think I have not seen that one before. May I look?
And then they d got to talking. He was brilliant. She could tell that from the few
things he said. But mostly he wanted her to talk. He liked listening to her about
everything, about anything she wanted to say.
He got her to tell him about growing up in Iowa, about moving to California when
she was fourteen, about high school and college and her unsuccessful love affairs,
about her theories of history and phys-ics and mathematics and especially
anthropol-ogy and He liked her. He listened, and he liked her, and to Gwen that
was devastating.
And she couldn t compete with him. Partly she couldn t because she didn t know
what he did. He never said directly, but she had the impression that he was in
advanced physics. Once he d got her talk-ing about the origin of the universe.
She d told him what she thought, and he scribbled some equations on a napkin.
They meant nothing to her. He d thrown the napkin away. She went back the next
morning and retrieved it from the garbage behind the restaurant and went to the
library. After spend-ing all day working on them the equations still meant nothing
to her. She couldn t even find many of the symbols.
Which meant he was a liar only it didn t. Les didn t have to lie. He talked about
himself only when she urged him to, and never to impress her. He d already done
that on the first night, when she found he d read nearly every anthropology book
ever writ-ten and understood all the major theories. When she could get him to
talk, she learned more in an hour with Les than she did in a month of classes.
For three weeks she had never seen him except in the coffee shop. He came in
late, always after mid-night, sometimes not until dawn. He drove a truck for
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20...20Pournelle%20-%2001%20-%20Janissaries.html (35 of 184) [12/29/2004 12:13:08 AM]
JANISSARIES
spending money and had no fixed schedule; but he always came, and she was
always waiting. They d never discussed it, but she knew he came just to see her.
For three weeks they talked in the shop. He waved good-bye to her when it got so
late she had to go home (or to morning classes).
Until yesterday. Yesterday he got up when she did, paid his check, and walked
home with her. It seemed perfectly natural that he come in with her and that they
go to bed together, and that he aroused her to flights of passion she had never
sup-posed possible.
He stayed until noon.
And now he was coming back and wanted to take her somewhere. She dressed
carefully. A skirt that didn t wrinkle. They didn t have to wrestle in a car he was
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]