"Ron Goulart - The Robot In The Closet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

"I should kiss his foot and call him Your Holiness?" The robot settled into the chair Tim had
abandoned. "You look like the type who starts the day with granola. Got any?"
"Machines don't eat."
"I'm not a robot in the strictest sense, schmo," the time machine explained. "I am officially
known, by the way, as Roscoe/203/TA-Humaform Time Machine Model JSG 1343-X2. You can
address me as just plain Roscoe. As I was telling Adam a couple weeks back, names are onlyтАФ"
"You mean the Adam?"
"I'm going to chinwag with Adam Malin or Adam the Educated Baboon? The fella who
shacked up with Eve in that garden, that Adam," said Roscoe with a slightly scornful expression on
his metallic lips. "See, he and the missus were having some trouble naming all the things in the
damn garden. Think of having to come up with the names for all the weeds alone. Ragweed was
one of my suggestions, also goldenrod. Eve wanted to call itтАФ"
"From what I've read about time travel, Roscoe, you're not supposed to do that sort of thing,"
Tim cut in. "There's the Time Travel Overseeing Commission, and they're very strict about people
stumbling around in time and making unauthorizedтАФ"
"TTOC is about as imaginative as your Aunt Tillie," the time machine said.
"I never had an Aunt Tillie."
"Sure you did. I ran into her in nineteenth-century Cleveland only a few months back. Tillie
Zackery, operated a house of ill repute that was always tottering on the brink of ruin because Tillie
insisted on mixing sins of the flesh with a pioneering interest in vegetarianism. I told her you can't
mix screwing with carrot cake and expect toтАФ"
"Is TTOC aware of what you do?"
"Relax, henpecko. The Time Travel goons are as aware as I want 'em to be," Roscoe assured
him. "Look, unless you take risks, you never pull free of the pack. First time I suggested to
Hannibal he use elephants to cross the Alps he said to me, 'Man, you tryin' to jive me? I got me a
mind to go upside your head.' Hannibal was black, but you probably know that from being so
nostalgic. I persisted, pointed out that elephants, while lacking in the element of surprise, wereтАФ"
"I don't think Sara and I are going to go gallivanting through time, which is a nitwit notion at
best, with the likes of you," Tim said firmly. "You're obviously a defective hunk of machinery.
Probably need a tune-up."
"I'm the best time machine you've ever cast your peepers on, sirrah. Why, forsooth, I'm a
crackerjack in my field."
"And how come you talk this way? Mingling slang from all different periods."
"What the use of traveling in time unless you allow some of it to rub off on you, cuz?" Roscoe
shook his coppery head pityingly. "Next time I drop in on Spinoza I'm going to try to convince him
a little time-tripping with me'll open hisтАФ"
 "You can't do that. TTOC won't let you bring anything or anybody out of the past." Tim jabbed
a finger in the direction of the time machine. "Anybody knows that. You take so much as a sliver of
wood out of another century and you're going to screw up the whole course of history. The majestic
flow of events will come out all cockeyed."
Roscoe's shoulders produced a squinking sound when he shrugged. "Some flow we got, buster,"
he said. "Some great frapping flow of progress. This is so nifty? Here it is Sunday, January 13,
2041, and we're freezing our goonies in an abode that looks like a pile of gigantic tits. A chicken
coop perched almost on top of a body of water which is about 72 percent pet droppings and
discarded plaz. And you claim we're sitting on the apex of civilization? Hooey, sez I."
"We're going to return you to the store. Turn you in on a new model."
Roscoe's laughter was like a cat howling in a barrel. It caused him to rock in his chair. "You're
stuck with me, palsy walsy," he said as his mirth subsided. "All the papers are already filed,
notarized and tattooed. The stodgy offices of the Time Travel Overseeing Commission grind awful
dang slow, whelp, and if you try to start over again with a new boy you'll never make it in time to