"Harry Harrison & Robert Sheckley - Bill the Galactic Hero 3 " - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

Scalsior joined Bill and they went journeying together around the world of Tsuris. Presently they passed
over a pleasant land where the sunshine was almost continuous and there was a long sandy coastline and
a gentle ocean lapping at it. "This is nice," Bill said.
"I don't like eet. We ain't supposed to be here, no way," Scalsior muttered. "This ees the principality of
Royo."
"It looks like a good place," Bill said. "How come the Tsurisians haven't taken it over?"
"You got me there, keed," Scalsior shrugged mentally. Not easy to do. "Eet might be interesting to find
out. But maybe dangerous too."
Reluctantly they left the pleasant-looking land of Royo and returned to the sterner realities of Tsuris. As
they speeded back toward the central factory that housed the Tsurisian computer, they picked up frantic
mental messages of a distressing sort.
"That sounds like a Mayday call to me," Bill said.
They went in closer. It turned out to be the voice of the Tsuris computer itself. Quickly it gathered both
Bill and Scalsior into its interior. They passed through long, winding cylindrical tunnels and at last found
themselves in an egg-shaped room which was dimly lit by concealed lighting. Bill and Scalsior were
bathed in a pearl-gray radiance. Bill noticed that there were several sofas in the room, and a desk. Bill
couldn't imagine why the computer had bothered to put these furnishings into the middle of an imaginary
room somewhere in its own mental sphere of construction. Scalsior was beside himself with anxiety.
"Eets going to go badly for us, I just know eet eez. Oh, merda! I should never have allowed you to talk
me into going off on a crappy sightseeing tour that way. Do you suppose the computer will accept my
apology? As well as my totally sincere and cringing promise to never do eet again?"
"We'll see what the computer says," Bill rasped, a little grimly.
It was shortly after that that the computer came into the room. Or appeared to come into the room since
the whole damn thing was nothing but an electronic simulation anyway. It made quite an entrance,
descending from an invisible spot in the ceiling in the form of a flashing blue light, and then winking out
of existence for a moment, appearing again in the form of a severe looking man in a blue-stripe business
suit, the shoulders thick with dandruff, and sporting a small mustache and pince-nez.
"You two creepos have been disobeying orders," the computer implied. "Have your dim traces of brains
forgotten already that I told you how important this work is? You must do it properly, exactly, quickly
and succinctly тАФ or there will be the most dire of consequences."
"Is that a fact?" Bill said truculently.
"Yes, it shagging well is."
"How do you propose to punish us, seeing as how we haven't any bodies, huh?" Bill sneered.
"I have my little ways," the computer hinted laconically. "Do you want me to give a quick and repulsive
demonstration?"
"Oh, please, no," Scalsior begged. "Everyone knows that computers are very big, powerful, sadistic and
highly dangerous. Which eez why we banned them from our planet. Other computers of course, you
being a fair and impartial, not to say kind, are an exception to the general rule. I take your word for eet.
I'll obey like mad, let me tell you!"
"Then you, with all groveling and knee-bending, may be gone," the computer ordered in a lordly tone.
Then it turned ominously to Bill. "But as for you..."
"Yeah," Bill said surlily, "what about me?"
"Do you want a demonstration of my wrath?"