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

beach like a traveling salesman heaving his suitcase onto a motel bed. Near me, a line of surfers ripped
their surf-bots pretty hard. Each surfer held a black box in one hand and worked controls with the other.
Out on the water, robotsтАФgold, silver, bronzeтАФcranked the waves top to bottom, while their controllers
hoped for that dream session, that perfect ride through the crystal room. Few of the surfers got wet any
higher than their ankles.
I walked to a tall, dark human, a little older than most of the other surfers. Near him was a short,
compact brunette. They showed a lot of skin and were fairly brown, even by Malibu standards. They
were intent on their surf-bots and didn't see me. I waited for the bots to glide up onto the beach and
grate to a stop. The bots stood at attention on their boards while we talked.
"I'm history," I said, surprising both of them. "Coming back?" the man said. The brunette smiled at me
but didn't say anything. I nodded and said, "Life gets dull in Bay City." The man laughed as he shook his
head at the wet sand. Whipper Will knew the truth about Bay City, and Bingo probably did too. It was
kind of like a joke between us.
Whipper Will said, "Wait a minute, dude. I have something for you." He took a few steps up to where
the sand was dry and took something from a canvas bag. He came back and handed me a paperback
book wrapped in plastic. A mystery novel by Tony Hillerman.
"Going-away present," Bingo said.
I nodded and stuffed the package down into my short Johns. "Bitchen," I said.
I shook hands with Whipper Will and traded hugs with Bingo. After a nervous moment, I turned to
contemplate the ocean, letting waves make wings past my legs. The water was even colder than I
imagined it would be.
I waved one last time to Whipper Will and Bingo, and plunged in and swam out to the saucer-shaped
ship on the floor of the bay. It was my sneeve, the Philip Marlowe. Inside, everything was as I had left
it. I popped a few chocolate-covered coffee beans into my mouth just for luck and blasted off.
On the ride back to T'toom I had plenty of time to go through the photographs I'd taken, to read the
Hillerman and some of the other mystery novels I'd brought, to wonder if I'd actually return to Earth one
more time. If I stayed on T'toom, my life as a detective was over. Trouble would no longer be my
business. Perhaps my business would be applying household ooze or fixing slaberingeo spines or even
looking for local substitutes for chocolate and coffee. But not trouble. Not the kind of trouble they have
on Earth. My musings seemed to be very much like an answer to my question about whether or not I'd
return to Earth.
I landed on T'toom and was met by the family. My parents had gotten a little older since I'd been
there last, but Grampa Zamp looked about the same and was as cantankerous as ever. Although
everybody had noses the size of mine, they looked too big to me. I'd been on Earth a long time. Because
we'd been receiving commercial radio broadcasts from Earth for a while, we all spoke English. Almost
everybody on T'toom did. Fans of Little Orphan Annie and The Shadow were everywhere.
Dad was glad to see more chocolate-covered coffee beans. On my last trip home the demand for
them had been huge. He'd used some of the money to pay for re-oozing the house.
I was not the celebrity I'd been last time. I heard from a few biologists who wanted to learn how the
human body workedтАФthings I didn't know, things I doubted most Earth people knew. Mostly I was just
Zoot come home again.
I showed off my photographs after dinner that night. My parents glanced at them and suggested I give
them to some local scientists. As usual, Grampa Zamp studied the photos as if they contained winning
lottery numbers and asked me a lot of questions I answered in the vaguest way I could.
Mainly, I stuck with my story that Earth was a terrible place, a nest of monsters, each hungrier than
the other. We both knew it wasn't true, because last time I'd been home I'd told him it wasn't true, but I
needed the practice and Grampa Zamp seemed to understand. I don't know who I was protecting, but I
did know that a lot of extra unidentified flying objects from T'toom would not look good in the skies of
Earth.
After dinner Grampa Zamp and I went for a walk. The abo trees were dripping and far away we