"Mel Gilden - Zoot Marlow 3 - Tubular Android Superheroes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gilden Mel)

"Y-e-a-o-w!" and leapt to her feet. She scrambled to a drawer and pulled out a clutch of odd-sized
paperтАФold envelopes, advertising, ticket stubs among themтАФand set them on the table before me as if
serving a steak. "Messages," she said. "All from Knighten Daise."
If I'd had eyebrows, they would have gone up then. Knighten Daise and his daughter Heavenly had
given me a lot of grief on my first trip to Earth. Them and their Surfing Samurai Robots. I thought I had
done with them. I turned over the messages one at a time and saw a tossed salad of scribbles, each one
of which told me Knighten Daise's name and phone number and the word urgent, occasionally even
spelled correctly.
I selected one of the neater messages and went to dial the number. The phone was answered by a
low mellow voice that sounded too perfect to be real, and it was. It belonged to Davenport, the Daise
robotler. I told Davenport who I was and that I wanted to speak with Mr. Daise. '
A moment later somebody else came on the line speaking with a thick, heavy, gelatinous voice. "Mr.
Daise?" I said, feeling a little goofy talking to it. If that was him, he wasn't using the hissy whisper he had
when he was a lobster.
"Marlowe? Where have you been?"
"Away. Is there some problem?"
"I want you over here right now."
"Is there some problem?" I said again.
"Look out your window. Androids are everywhere."
 I nodded into the phone and it had the expected effect. I stopped myself and said, "You have android
trouble, Mr. Daise?"
"Must you always play hard to get, Marlowe? I'm offering you a job, and I want you to come over so
we can discuss it."
Daise was right, of course. He didn't have to tell me what he wanted. I was ready to mow his front
lawn if that was all he wanted. So far this trip had been as dull as a dirty window. Trouble was my
business. Here was trouble. The fact that I didn't like Mr. Daise or his robots slowed me down a little.
But I was bored enough to play his silly game, that was for sure.
I was about to tell him I'd be right over when Grampa Zamp came back into the breakfast nook
looking less like a sick seagull and announced he was hungry. "Pizza," he said. It was not merely a
suggestion.
Into the phone I said, "I'll be over tomorrow."
"Today, Marlowe. I've waited long enough."
"There are people ahead of you. You've taken a number. I'll be over tomorrow."
He huffed at me, finally agreed, and hung up. I felt better already.
"A case?" Whipper Will said.
"Not yet. So far it's just a phone call." I turned to Zamp and said, "Pizza?"
"That's what I'm told," Grampa Zamp said.
Whipper Will and Bingo were game, and I sent Bill down to the beach to see if any of the surfers
were interested. Silly me. A surfer who was not interested in pizza was probably dead. We all strolled up
the public walkway pretending that if everything did not suit us just so, we'd turn it into a parking lot.
Malibu was having another beautiful day; you can live there for a long time without seeing anything
else. The ocean looked like a sheet of diamonds, but it still smelled like the ocean. The smell had to fight
hot grease, thin chili, and tanning lotion, but it won. The ocean always does. The sky was so blue
somebody might have trucked it in from Hollywood. It came complete with a hot white sun that might
have been carved from a new kind of ice.
People who had nothing better to do were out in force. Enough more than a few of them wore the
same unusual jewelry that I wondered if it was more than a fad. I pointed them out to Whipper Will.
"The blue plastic collars?" Whipper Will said as if I had insulted him. "Superhero Androids."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning vat-grown simulacrums of human beings. No springs, no gears, no electronics. Just android