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Купил себе куртку – спереди белая, сзади малиновая, по бокам серебристая, с малиновой лентой и воротником, вышитым золотом. Ничего менее яркого не нашлось. Можно носить одежду меняющегося фасона и цвета; платье, которое съеживается под мужским взглядом или, наоборот – распускается перед сном, как цветок; брюки и блузки с подвижными изображениями, как на телеэкране. Ордена можно носить какие угодно и сколько угодно. Можно выращивать на шляпе японские карликовые растения методом гидропоники, но можно, к счастью, их не выращивать и не носить.

Третий проект, рассчитанный на долгие годы, был куда радикальнее. Он предусматривал эктогенезис, деташизм и всеобщую гомикрию. От человека оставался один только мозг в изящной упаковке из дюропласта, что-то вроде глобуса, снабженного клеммами, вилками и розетками. Обмен веществ предполагалось перевести на ядерный уровень, а принятие пищи, физиологически совершенно излишнее, свелось бы к чистой иллюзии, соответствующим образом программируемой. Головоглобус можно будет подключать к любым конечностям, аппаратам, машинам, транспортным средствам и т.д. Такая деташизация проходила бы в два этапа. На первом проводится план частичного деташизма: ненужные органы оставляются дома; скажем, собираясь в театр, вы снимаете и вешаете в шкаф подсистемы копуляции и дефекации. В следующей десятилетке намечалось путем гомикрии устранить всеобщую давку – печальное следствие перенаселения. Кабельные и беспроводные каналы межмозговой связи сделали бы излишними поездки и командировки на конференции и совещания и вообще какое-либо передвижение, ибо все без исключения граждане имели бы связь с датчиками по всей ойкумене, вплоть до самых отдаленных планет. Промышленность завалит рынок манипуляторами, педикуляторами, гастропуляторами, а также головороллерами (чем-то вроде рельсов домашней железной дороги, по которым головы смогут катиться сами, ради забавы).

Я прервал чтение – вернее, лизание – рефератов и заметил, что их авторы, должно быть, свихнулись.

Листовка с советом избегать спекулянтов – торговцев запрещенным снивом. И тут же – призыв не смотреть стихийные, неуправляемые сны; это, мол, разбазаривание нервной энергии. Какая забота о гражданах! Заказал себе сниво из Столетней войны: проснулся – все тело в сняках.

Вчера, например, решил покрутить регулятор солидности, то есть собственного веса изображения, чтобы сделать его поплотнее и поувесистее. Стол диктора треснул под тяжестью текста вечерних известий, а сам он провалился сквозь пол студии. Разумеется, эти эффекты наблюдались у меня одного, последствий никаких не имели и лишь свидетельствовали о состоянии моих нервов.

Одни названия передач чего стоят... Например, «С надуванкой на эротоцикле» – криминальная драма, которая начинается с того, что в темном бистро сидит компания роботрясов.

Fortune favors the brave and people with double barrel shotguns.

Demnogonis, The Dark Apostle of Disease, has found a home on Venus. You will go in and hand him an eviction notice.

A gull called from overhead. Suddenly, Jona dove like a porpoise right into Flotsam's face (Or maybe it was Jetsam. Honestly, Ariel could never tell them apart). She stabbed her beak into his face like she was spearing an especially truculent fish.

Flotsam (or Jetsam) eerily did not scream – he merely put one hand up to protect his face and very methodically tried to pick the bird off with the other.

Scuttle followed close behind, ripping at Jetsam's (or Flotsam's) nose. That eel also didn't scream; he just knocked the old gull aside with the back of his hand.

There was also a chance, if they succeeded, that her father, once returned to full power, would never allow her to come onto land again. He could make it so that no one could become human. Of course, she could always search for another way. But last time that had led to Ursula, and...

«Then apparently you don't understand humans as much as you claim to. At some point one of your friends or enemies is going to use our inimical relationship to drive a wedge through the kingdom. Many countries are already getting rid of their kings and queens and princes and princesses – or at least taking away their power while letting them keep their pretty crowns. Royalty that actually rules is a dying breed. Do we really want to give anyone the opportunity to speed it along here in Tirulia?»

Ursula had never thought of it that way before. It was true – a lot of nasty populist places were having revolutions and becoming republics and democracies, patting their royalty on the head and pushing them on their way.

(If the royalty was lucky, that was all that happened to their heads)

«Slow down there», – Ariel said cautiously. – «This is Ursula. Nothing is over until it's actually over».

Holding on to one of those boulders was Ariel, strangely placid in the turbulent water. Her tail snaked sinuously out behind her, keeping her level and on the surface of the water like a kraken. «This is amazing», – he said, as delighted as a child. – «This is how you really are».

«This is how I really am», – she agreed, touched that he had phrased it that way. She was no longer a human girl who became a mermaid to him; she was a mermaid first and foremost, and a human occasionally by choice.

– Power's off... That means no security. Well, 'cept me. I'm always on.

– Пусто. Думаю, это было, как бы сказать... игра света и тени.

«What is a musician to do?»

«Maybe stop whining and be grateful for a chance to serve his kingdom», – Ariel suggested dryly.

«Well... I think I've learned the hard way that there is no fair bargaining with a sea witch. Also, I wouldn't just be abandoning Eric. I'd be leaving his kingdom to a terrible fate as well. Our worlds should never have collided, and the people of Tirulia are dealing with the results of...» – a rash decision by a lovesick mermaid, – «choices I myself made years ago».

«So I was looking for the beautiful mermaid who sang me awake», – Eric mused, thinking back on the time. – «And all the while she was right there before me». «YES».

Ariel said it a little louder, a little more fiercely than she had meant. Her eyes blazed. Eric looked at her, surprised. «You had legs», – he pointed out.

«I had the same face and hair, Eric», – she said, using his name for the first time.

«Suffice it to say I made a bargain with Ursula the sea witch that if I couldn't make you fall in love with me m three days, she would keep my voice forever – and me, as her prisoner».

«Three days? That seems rather short. To make someone fall in love with you, I mean».

«I'm a mermaid», – Ariel reminded him. – «For thousands of years you people have been falling in love with us at first sight, immediately and forever upon hearing our songs. I didn't think it would be a problem». «But you weren't a mermaid. You were a human».

«Yes, and I had no voice, which made things even harder than I imagined», – she said bitterly.

«There was a storm, and a ship. I think most of the crew died. But I managed to save you and take you to shore. You were so... handsome and strange».

«Strange?» – he asked in surprise.

She laughed softly. «You had two legs: silly. And no fins. Strange». «Right. Of course. Strange from a mermaid's perspective», – he said quickly.

«'From a mermaid's perspective...' Yes. Anyway».

«I just thought... I mean... I had hoped... you came back to take me away from all of this. To go live happily ever after somewhere. Under the sea, maybe». «You would drown under the sea».

«I'm drowning up here. I've been drowning. For years. Under water, it felt like. Now that I'm waking up, of course it makes sense that you would come. And... end it».

His eyes shone with open emotion: hope and wonder after a long period of darkness, the beautiful look of a child who, having passed through the gloom of puberty, is suddenly shown that unicorns and fairies are real after all.

He smiled in surprise. He put his hand up to touch her face, perhaps brush away a stray hair... before his fingers did what they really wanted and pulled her chin closer to him. He kissed her on the lips.

It was brief, but in the moment their skin touched she closed her eyes and consumed him: his smell, his warmth, the movement of his mouth against hers. It was like... A good-night kiss.

Over too quickly, but every moment of it meant a universe.

All those years before, and all those years in between... She had dreamed so many different scenarios of this moment! Ariel as a human, Ariel as a mer. Eric as a mer! Eric opening his eyes right when she rescued him and kissing her, falling in love with her on the spot. Eric kissing her in the boat, when she really, really thought he was going to, and the night was so romantic... Kissing her on any of the three mornings, or realizing at the last minute Vanessa was a fake and kissing Ariel instead, and the wedding would have been for them...

And here it finally was.

The pictures on the back of the strange-feeling vellum were far more disturbing than the weird Dry World creature on the front. There were lines and shapes that looked like they could be runes but shuddered when she tried to look at them too closely. Curves somehow didn't bend properly on the paper, and constellations of dots made her sick when she studied them, suggesting terrible things.

Ariel shook her head at the blasphemous sigils. «I don't know what these say for certain. They aren't mer runes; they're like a twisted, upside-down version of them. If I had to guess I would say they're black runes of the Deep Ones. Forbidden, evil... the whole deal».

«Can you read them at all?»

«This is just a noise, I think», – she said, pointing. – «Like ai ai. No idea what 'phtaqn' means. This here I think refers to a circuex, a powerful spell that is capable of disrupting – or joining – worlds. This looks like the mer word for 'blood', and that looks like a determinative for 'god'. Or possibly 'great' or 'lots'».

«So...»

«So she needs blood, the blood of a god». – Ariel bit her lip, seeing where it was all leading. – «Ancient blood flows through my father's veins... That would explain why she's keeping him around. She needs him for something, something involving magic. But for what exactly I can't tell».

Ariel felt sick as she said the words. She pushed the paper back at him.

«Here, please take this. I don't enjoy the feel of dead human skin».

«Dead...? Human...?» – Eric took it back, aghast.

«Just that everything she did to you and your father didn't keep you down. You popped up, older, stronger, more powerful than ever. She realizes she didn't beat you enough last time. Now she wants complete victory, which involves wiping out your home».

Eric smiled. «I think my character would have a song about how he's been caught by a siren and is under her spell».

Ariel made a face. «I'm not a siren. Trust me. I have cousins... distant cousins... We don't get along. But what were you saying? About Ursula?»