"Bester, Alfred - Fondly Faranheit (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)

УI couldnТt take the chance,Ф Vandaleur explained angrily. Уif they started fooling around with lobotomies and body chemistry and endocrine surgery, they might have destroyed its aptitudes. What would I have left to hire out? How would I live?Т
УYou could work yourself. People do.Ф
УWork at what? You know IТm good for nothing. How could I compete with specialist androids and robots? Who can, unless heТs got a terrific talent for a particular job?Ф
УYeah. ThatТs true.Ф
УI lived off my old man all my life. Damn him! He had to go bust just before he died. Left me the android and thatТs all. The only way I can get along is living off what it earns;Ф
УYou better sell it before the cops catch up with you. You can live off fifty grand. Invest it.Ф
УAt three percent? Fifteen hundred a year? When the android returns fifteen percent of its value? Eight thousand - a year.
ThatТs what it earns. No, Dallas. IТve got to go along with it.Ф
УWhat are you going to do about its violence kick?Ф
УI canТt do anything. . . except watch it and pray. What are you going to do about it?Ф
УNothing. ItТs none of my business. Only one thing. . .I ought to get something for keeping my mouth shut.Ф
УWhat?Ф
"The android works for me for free. Let somebody else pay you, but I get it for free.Ф

The multiple-aptit de android worked. Vandaleur collected its fees. His expenses were taken care of. His savings began to mount. As the warm spring of Megastтr V turned to hot summer, I began investigating farms and properties. It would be possible, within a year or two, for us to settle down permanently, provided Dallas BradyТs demands did not become rapacious.
On the first hot day of summer, the android began singing in Dallas BradyТs workshop. It hovered over the electric furnace which, along with the weather, was broiling the shop, and sang an ancient tune that had been popular half a century before.

УOh, itТs no feat to beat the heat.
All reet! All reet!
So jeet your seat
Be fleet be fleet
Cool and discreet
- Honey...Ф

It sang in a strange, halting voice, and its accomplished fingers were clasped behind its back, writhing in a strange rumba all their own. Dallas Brady was surprised.
УYou happy or something?Ф she asked.
УI must remind you that the pleasure-pain syndrome is not incorporated in the android synthesis,Ф I answered. УAll reet!
All rent! Be fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey
Its fingers stopped their twisting and picked up a pair of iron tongs. The android poked them into the glowing heart of the furnace, leaning far forward to peer into the lovely heat.
УBe careful, you damned fool!Ф Dallas Brady exclaimed. УYou want to fall in?Ф
УI must remind you that I am worth fifty-seven thousand dollars on the current exchange,Ф I said. УIt is forbidden to endanger valuable property. All met! All met! Honey. . .
It withdrew a crucible of glowing gold from the electric
furnace, turned, capered hideously, sang crazily., and splashed a sluggish gobbet of molten gold over Dallas BradyТs head. She screamed and collapsed, her hair and clothes flaming, her skin crackling. The android poured again while it capered and
sang.
УBe fleet be fleet, cool and discreet, honey. .. .У It sang and
slowly poured and poured the molten, gold until the writhing body was still. Then I left the workshop and rejoined James Vandaleur in his hotel suite. The androidТs charred clothes and squinning fingers warned its owner- that something was very much wrong.
Vandaleur rushed to Dallas BradyТs workshop, stared once, vomited and fled. I had enough time to pack one bag and raise nine nundred dollars on portable assets. He took a third-class cabin on the Megastar Queen, which left that morning for Lyre Alpha. He took me with him. He wept and counted his money and I beat the android again.
And the thermometer in Dallas BradyТs workshop registered 98.10 beautifully Fahrenheit.

On Lyra Alpha we holed up in a small hotel near the muversity. There, Vandaleur carefully bruised my forehead until the letters MA were obliterated by the swelling and the discoloration. The letters would reappear again, but not for several months, and in the meantime Vandaleur hoped that the hue and cry for an MA android would be forgotten. The android was hired out as a common laborer in the university power plant. Vandaleur, as James Venice, eked out life on the androidТs small earnings.
I wasnТt too unhappy. Most of the other residents in the hotel were university students, equally hard up, but delightfully young and enthusiastic. There was one charming girl with sharp eyes and a quick mind. Her name was Wanda, and she and her beau, Jed Stark, took a tremendous interest in the killing android which was being mentioned in every paper in the galaxy.
УWeТve been studying the case,Ф she and Jed said at one of the casual student parties which happened to be held this night in VandaleurТs room. УWe think we know whatТs causing it. WeТre going to do a paper.Ф They were in a high state of excitement.
УCausing what?Ф somebody wanted to know. -
УThe android rampage.Ф
УObviously out Of adjustment, isnТt it? Body chemistry gone haywire. Maybe a kind of synthetic cancer, yes?Ф
УNo.Ф Wanda gave Jed a look of suppressed triumph.
УWell, what is it?Ф
УSomething specific." УWhat?Ф
УThat would be telling.Ф УOh, come on.Ф
УNothing doing.Ф