Free The wrong end of time by John Brunner

My sister and her johnny reb snuggled up!"
     
"Zip your mouth. you reeky turd," Lora said, and twisted on the couch so her back was towards her brother.
     
"Hey!" Sheklov exclaimed. half-rising. A look of instant fury had appeared on Peter's face, and he seemed about to launch himself bodily at Lora.
     
"Oh, fade away" she told him over her shoulder.
     
"Peter?" a richly resonant voice said from outside. Yes, it was Powell back again. "Ah, there you are" He touched the boy companionably on the arm, and left his hand there as Peter stepped back against him.
     
"I'm going to make you pay for that!" he snarled at Lora.
     
"Peter!" Powell reproved. "That's no way to talk to-"
     
"So how would you like to be called a reeky turd?"
     
"Oh, sticks and stones, you know, sticks and stones" Having located Peter again, Powell seemed to have had his good humor restored too. He eased the boy into a chair and sat on its arm, his hand still where he had first put it. "I must say the party's going splendidly, isn't it? Are you enjoying yourself, Lora?"
     
"In the company of my johnny reb, yes, thank you."
     
"My dear girl!" Powell said, shocked. "That's not a terra to bandy around lightly, you know. To call someone a reb is to accuse him of being a wastrel, whose actions strike at the very foundations of our cherished heritage"
     
And Danty glanced up and nodded: mm-hm!
     
That threw Powell completely. He almost gaped for a moment, and then added, making a fast comeback, "Though we must not condemn too harshly. It's not for us to sit in judgment, after all."
     
"Except on ourselves," Danty murmured, and packed a dozen personal implications into the comment. Powell got them all. He tugged at his clerical collar as though it were suddenly too tight.
     
"Very true. I must remember that phrase. 'Sermons in stones . . .' And we're told that stony ground will be the
     
     
lot of some of our seed. Tell me, young man, are you lapsed from the brotherhood of your church?"
     
"I guess so," Danty said indifferently.
     
"Shame! But we mustn't lose hope for you, must we? 'There is more joy in heaven-' And so on."
     
Maliciously Danty said, "And so on-what?"
     
"'Over one sinner that repenteth,"' Powell answered automatically. Then he realized he was being needled. He rose.
     
"Pardon me," he said with a half-bow. "I'm a longsuffering man, but I can't endure mockery of my Cloth. Come, Peter. I think I begin to understand your antipathy to your sister."
     
     
The instant the door closed, Lora threw herself at Danty. "Oh, you're wonderful" she cried, and thrust her tongue into his ear. "I'll go find some more drinks-I want to wash away the taste of that slug Won't be long!"
     
And, rising, she added to Sheklov, "What's yours, Don? Whiskey? Rightly"
     
Left alone with Danty, Sheklov thought himself by main force back into the conservatively disapproving role that fitted his pose as a successful Canadian salesman, and said, "You told the minister you're a reb. I hope you were only -uh-needling him?"
     
Danty gave a shrug. "Well, I didn't invent the term, but I find it easy to put on."
     
Sheklov's mind raced. How to strike a balance between ostensible conformity and real interest? Once again he recalled Bratcheslavsky, squatting on the floor in distant Alma-Ata; the old man had said, "Reb! That's a word to bear in mind. There's something going on. From here one can't find out exactly what. Official smog surrounds the reality. Maybe it's just another term for what we used to call stilyagf,'or jet-set. On the other hand, maybe not."
     
He felt suddenly dizzy. Those dark eyes were boring into his again. Could the liquor-? No, of course not. It was far weaker than the 140-proof Polish vodka he . . .
     
From a very great distance a voice that was recognizably Danty's reached him. It was saying, "You want I should join the church Powell runs? Twenty million people watch his sermons every Sunday. That makes him a holy man?"
     
And then the