Читать книгу The Science Fiction Anthology онлайн

30 страница из 776

That night, Carson, listening boredly to the record of all the conversations over the beamphone during the day, heard what Lon had told Cathy. He didn’t believe it, of course.

But he made a memo to look into it.

Rhadampsicus stretched himself. Out on the ninth planet, the weather was slightly warmer—almost six degrees Kelvin, two hundred and sixty-odd degrees centigrade below zero—and he was inclined to be lazy. But he was very handsome, in Nodalictha’s eyes. He was seventy or more feet from his foremost eye stalk to the tip of his least crimson appendage, and he fluoresced beautifully in the starlight. He was a very gallant young bridegroom.

When he saw Nodalictha looking at him admiringly, he said with his customary tenderness:

“It was fatiguing to make him go through it, darling, but since you wished it, it is done. He now has food to share with the female.”

“And you’re handsome, too, Rhadampsicus!” Nodalictha said irrelevantly.

She felt as brides sometimes do on their honeymoons. She was quite sure that she had not only the bravest and handsomest of husbands, but the most thoughtful and considerate.