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

could hear a slaberingeo crashing through the forest. Familiar smells enveloped me: nothing quite as
pungent as hot grease or chocolate, but pleasant flowery smells that came and went like daydreams. We
didn't talk for a long time. I was getting used to being home and I think Grampa Zamp was letting me do
it.
Other folks were out walking too. One of them stopped me cold. I looked after him as he continued
on his way.
"Your mouth is hanging open," Grampa Zamp said.
I closed my mouth but I continued to stare. What I had seen was a Toomler with a nose like an
Earthman's. A short blobby thing barely worth mentioning. It looked like a marshmal-low in the center of
the kid's face.
I said, "I guess I missed a lot while I was gone." Grampa Zamp took my arm and we started to walk
again.
He said, "It started pretty soon after you left. Copies of those pictures you brought back were
everywhere. Some of the wilder element decided that if they could talk like an Earth person, they should
look like one too."
"They had their noses bobbed?"
"I hear tell it's the single most popular operation in the world." He shook his head.
I wanted to say something clever but nothing occurred to me. I was too horrified. Looking like an
Earth person was not the same as talking like one. Whereas the learning of a foreign language was kind
of self-improving, self-mutilation had never held much allure for me. "The wilder element has gotten a lot
wilder since I went away."
Grampa Zamp nodded and said, "Earth is a popular place, considering nobody's been there but you."
He looked at me kind of sideways, as if waiting for me to disagree with him.
"The charm of radio," I said, wondering what he was leading up to.
"Charm," Grampa Zamp said. He pulled some sap off an abo tree, rolled it between his palms for a
moment, and pitched it into his mouth. He chewed mightily and went on, "I want to go with you next time
you go there."
"Maybe I won't go again."
Grampa Zamp snorted.
"Besides," I said, "one Toomler on Earth is hard to explain away. Two might be impossible."
"I thought trouble was your business." He handed me some sap.
I rolled it as he had and sucked on it. It tasted a little like cinnamon. Durf, it tasted exactly like abo
sap. Clouds of childhood memories gathered 'round. I said, "Earth people have plenty of trouble. They
don't need more. I don't need more."
He looked at me as if I'd slapped him with a rolled-up newspaper.
"Look," I said. "You are probably my favorite person in the world. Any world. I am very happy when
we are together, just hanging around chewing abo sap. But Earth really isn't the perfect vacation spot."
"I've been around, Zoot. I don't need to be coddled."
"No."
"I see. Greedy, ain't we?"
"No."
"I'll get my own sneeve."
Of course, he could. He didn't need me to take him to Earth. But I didn't think he would. In his mind,
Earth had become my property and he would respect that. All that aside, if he'd wanted to go alone, he
would have already gone. So I called his bluff. I said, "All right. Go ahead. But remember, Earth really is
a dangerous place. Not only for Earth people but for us. If somebody from one of the colleges can
convince the government you're not from their planet, you could wind up in a zooтАФor worse, on
somebody's dissecting table." He had the grace to shudder.
On the way back to the house, we passed another Toomler with his nose bobbed. Zamp and I just
looked at each other and shook our heads.