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

the clear blue sky and experimentally said to him, "Looks like rain."
The guy looked up at the same clear blue sky and nodded as he frowned. "Funny time of year for it,"
he said.
The bad smell was good. It made people believe things against their own intelligence, observation,
taste, and desire. I was sure that Knighten Daise would have something to say about this too. It was
funny that the stuff seemed to have no effect on me and Zamp or on the surfers. Me and Zamp I could
understand:
We were not of this Earth. But what made the surfers in Whipper Will's house different from all the
other dudes and dudettes on the beach?
After the glare outside Guido's was dark and cool and smelled of exotic spices. So little of the terrible
smell was in the air, I might have only imagined it was there at all.
Our waiter was a big kid who had cannon-balls for muscles. Maybe he was a Surfing Samurai Robot
in a flesh-colored suit. His short hair looked like sandpaper. He glanced around the big table,
appreciating the local fauns, but mostly was interested in me and Zamp. "We don't get many like you two
in here," he said as if he'd said something clever.
It occurred to me that I had never been inside Guido's before. I'd eaten his pizza, but it had always
been take-out, and I'd never been the one to do the taking. I said, "We're bookends. You know?
Books?"
I don't know what it was, the crazy smell in the air or my sparkling personality, but he smiled as if he'd
figured out addition at last, and said, "Sure. Bookends." He took our order and while we waited, Zamp
rubbernecked.
Whipper Will wanted to give Bill a handful of change so he could play the video game in the corner
while we ate, but Bill said, "Watch my dust." He waddled to the game, did something to it, and began to
play. I had seen him do the same thing to parking meters and Laundromats.
When the kid brought the pizza, Zamp said, "This is it?"
"Give it a chance," Thumper said.
"It's very flat, isn't it?" Zamp said as he took a slice. When he bit into it his eyeballs rolled up into his
head and when he was done with the first slice, he took another. Flopsie and Mopsie had a good time
wiping the sauce off his face, and Zamp didn't seem to mind. By the time we left the kid was watching Bill
through narrow eyes and drumming his fingers on the counter next to the cash register.
All in all the meal at Guido's was more successful than the walk home. Whipper Will would not look
at any android, and he ignored the clumps of people in front of the stores to the point that he would walk
right through them as if they were clouds of insects. For him, cars effervescing like soda water had all the
fascination of cracks in the pavement. Bingo watched him with the concern of a nurse watching a patient
who had a colorful disease.
I told her. "He'll be OK."
"You don't know the whole story."
"There's a way to fix that."
 She shook her head. "I can't. Whipper'll throw it down if he gets cranked enough."
"I wouldn't want him any more cranked than he is right now."
For some reason, Bingo looked even more concerned after that.
The rude noises that Bill and the surfers made at androids were sometimes mistaken for comments
about the owners. Not even this snapped Whipper Will out of his trance. Bill and the surfers worked out
their problems by being as cute and nonthreatening as a basketful of kittens. We slipped past fights like a
ship narrowly missing icebergs.
When we got back to the house a woman was reclining in the sun on a chaise lounge on the back
deck. She was relaxed enough to be asleep. Even in repose as she was, she gave the impression of being
in languid graceful motion. She had long dark hair that fell in feathers to her shoulders. Where the sun
caught it, red coals seemed to smolder. The enormous black lenses of sunglasses covered her eyes, and
from high cheekbones hung a wide mouth splashed with red, and a wicked chin. The relaxed mouth