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

take off next week."
Tim started pacing in a circle around the seated time machine. "Where'd Sara rent you? She told
me the name of the outfit, but I've forgotten."
"Windmiller Time Agency." Roscoe elevated his left buttock and a tiny door popped open. He
fished out some faxpages, closed up and resettled in the chair. "Here you have copies of all the
necessary papers and permits, kiddo. Everything is strictly kosher."
"Windmiller? Windmiller? That's the outfit over in New Stamford, run by a very unorthodox
old coot named Dr. Rowland Windmiller. Christ, why did Sara go to him?"
"She cares enough to get the very best."
Snorting, Tim went striding over to the pixphone table. "I'll call Windmiller andтАФ"
"You can't."
"I sure as hell can. You can't intimidate me."
"I meant Doc's hiding out," Roscoe informed him. "He's in Mexico, 1915, whereat he and his
buddy, that newspaper hack Amby Bierce, are cutting up a few touches."
"Okay, when is he due back?"
"Qui├йn sabe? as we say down that way." The time machine gave a rattling chuckle, spread his
hands wide. "I imagine Doc won't surface until the alimony lawyers cease hunting for him."
Tim scowled. "Nobody pays alimony anymore. Our present fair and wise system of specified-
term marriages has eliminated the old unjustтАФ"
"Don't I know that, sweetheart? Me who's crashed weddings in every century since the whole
business got rolling. By the way, if you're really looking for festive times you can't do better than
the Hyperborean Age. Look up a pal of mine name of Conan if . . . ah, but I fear I stray from me
topic. The lowdown on Doc Windmiller is this. He's fallen for a dame many years his junior and it's
made him completely gaga. This is his seventh wife, too, and by now the old gent ought to know
better. Anyhow, this wide-eyed, fantastic-chested twit bats her lamps and tells poor Doc she'd just
truly love an old-fashioned wedding. Now your average sap would take that to mean at most a
white veil and a few fistfuls of rice flung. What's the simp do, however, but transport the girl back
to 1876 for a really old-fashioned knot-tying. Wellsir, she's got him now and her attorneys claim
the laws of 1876 apply and not our current ones. A real case to go down in the lawbooks. When I
told Blackstone about it he near crapped in his bloomers. 'Gad, sir, what a ninny thisтАФ' "
"Okay, okay," cut in Tim. "I can't complain to Dr. Windmiller personally. There's got to be
somebody running the office."
Roscoe poked his dial-laden chest with a metal thumb, causing a small bong sound. "Moi. I'm
the head cheese," he announced, leaning forward. "Let me tell you something, dimwit. We got us a
very rough time itinerary blocked out. Checking out your Sara's roots is going to be a ballbuster,
requiring guts, luck and the ability to deliver a well-placed smack in the snoot if need be. I took a
liking to the lady from the moment she first pixed our office the other am. I don't want the kid
coming to any grief, which is why I assigned her the best time machine we've got in stock. Namely
myself."
"I don't see how we're going to run into much trouble, Roscoe." Tim indicated the genealogy
chart stuck to the wall. "The Tenbrook family tree is cluttered with decent, respectable and dull
citizens. Year after year, decade after decade, they seem to have produced nothing but clergymen,
doctors and interior decorators."
Roscoe made another rattling amused noise. "Holy smoke," he observed. "If you believe that,
you'll believe anything."
"Listen, I love Sara," Tim told the time machine. "One of the consequences of that is I've had to
listen to quite a bit of input about the Tenbrook family. Especially since she went back to college."
He made another jab in the direction of the wall chart. "She's very enthusiastic about her roots and
ancestry. There's not a fact in any historical source or archive she hasn't dug up and fed into our
home computer. I can assure you, Roscoe, there's not a single branch of the family tree that isn't