"Linda Evans - Time Scout 2 - Wages of Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

tourists, to help defray expenses a little. They were con men and women, all
might. They just had a different angle on the art than Skeeter did.
Ianira Cassondra-who had occasionally made Skeeter's hair stand on end,
just with a simple word or two-called them fakes, charlatans, and even worse,
because they had neither the training to dabble in such things, nor the proper
attitude for it.
"They will inadvertently hurt people one day. Just wait. Station management
will do nothing about them now; but when people start falling down sick with
all manner of strange illnesses, their trade will be banished." She'd sighed,
dark eyes unhappy. "And Management will most likely outlaw my booth as well,
as I doubt Bull Morgan is capable of telling the difference."
Skeeter had wanted to contradict her, but not only was he half scared she
was reading the future, in the back of his own mind, Skeeter knew perfectly
well that Bull Morgan wouldn't know the difference, and wouldn't care, either,
just so long as the crummy tourists were protected.
Skeeter thought dark, vile thoughts at bureaus and the bureauc-rats that
ran 'em, and skittered through long lines in Edo Castletown waiting for the
official opening of the new Shinto Shrine that was nearly finished. He dashed
past Kit Carson's world-famous hotel, past extraordinary gardens with deep
streams where colored fish kept to the shadows, trying to avoid becoming a
sushi lunch for some Ichthyornis or a Sordes fritcheus diving down from the
ceiling.
Skeeter smiled reminiscently, recalling the moment Sue Fritchey had figured
out what their crow-sized "pterosaurs" really were: "My God! They're a new
species of Sordes! They shouldn't be living at the same time as a sternbergi
at all. My God, but this is... it's revolutionary! A warm-blooded, fur-covered
Sordes -and a fish eater, not an insectivore, but it's definitely a Sordes,
there's no mistaking that!-and it survived right up until the end of the
Cretaceous. All along, we've thought Sordes died out right at the end of the
Jurassic! What a paper this is going to be!" she'd laughed, eyes shining.
"Every paleontological journal uptime is going to be begging me for the right
to publish it!"
For Sue Fritchey, that was heaven.
Grapevine or not, Skeeter still hadn't heard what Sue had decided about the
pair of eagle like, toothed birds that had popped through an unstable gate
months ago. But whatever they were, they were going to make Sue Fritchey
famous. He wished her luck.
Reaching the edge of Urbs Romae, with its lavishly decorated Saturnalia
poles and cut evergreen trees, also boasting paid actors to reenact the one
day a year Roman slaves could give orders to their masters, orders that had to
be obeyed and often had the watching audience laughing so hard, both men and
women had to wipe their eyes dry just to see the show. Skeeter slowed to a
walk, whistling cheerfully to himself, winking at pretty girls he passed,
girls who sometimes blushed, yet always followed his departure with their
eyes.
Skeeter ducked beneath the sea of paper umbrellas tourists and residents
alike carried -- protection against droppings from aforementioned wild
prehistoric birds and pterosaurs-then he finally hunted out the Down Time Bar
& Grill where Marcus worked as a bartender.
The Down Time, tucked away in the "Urbs Romae" section of Commons, was a