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

bud, but loud, heavy, guffaw-guffaw type laughter of the joke's-on-you variety.
Bill glanced down. Then he glanced away. Then he glanced down again, winced, considered glancing
away again, pulled himself together, looked.
"You know, Bill," Kowalski said, "I thought this foot unveiling of yours was going to be a rip-off. I
mean, what could there be under that bandage; you plant a foot bud, you get a foot, right? Wrong. Bill, I
want to thank you. That is the funniest thing I've seen since the CO got fragged."
Bill stretched his clawed toes experimentally. "Seems to work OK," he said.
It should have worked OK. But it would have worked better on an alligator, since it was a fine, green,
scaly, abundantly clawed alligator's foot that was now growing on the end of Bill's ankle.
What had those doctors done? Were they experimenting, trying to turn him into a reptile? He didn't put it
past them. Since he had recently had a giant mutated chicken's foot for a foot he knew that anything was
possible. Probable тАФ in the Troopers. And the foot after that had been nice, maybe too many toes but that
wasn't bad, and he had really enjoyed it until it withered and dropped off.
It was a small green foot, but it was workable. And it would probably grow into a much larger foot. The
envy of any passing alligator he thought, gloomily. Bill did not stop to consider the miracle that man's
ability to do this represented. By any standard it was an act of genius. A little useless, perhaps, but genius
all the same. But this was lost on Bill who, like many before him, was mad as hell.

Bill stumped down the corridor, listing slightly to the left to favor his clawed and knobbly left foot. His
new alligator foot had not grown out to full size yet, so there was little more than an inch difference
between his left and right feet. The foot itself was perfectly sound and able to bear his weight, though the
claws scratched the floor when he walked.
His immediate destination was the small cubicle on level twelve of the main concourse of the base. He
got there slightly out of breath, since walking on a taloned alligator's foot takes practice before you can
do it smoothly.
The cubicle was ten feet to a side. It was divided into two parts, one a reception and waiting room, the
other the place of the computer. The military base on Shyster was run by this Quintiform computer, not
the latest model, but one believed to be just as good, almost.
Bill went in and took his seat in the waiting room. He was the only person there. That was unusual, since
the computer usually had a line of people waiting to consult it.
No sooner had he sat down than a metallic voice with plenty of vibrato said to him: "Hello, I am the
Quintiform computer; please step inside and show me your dogtags."
Bill did as he was told. The inner room of the computer station was painted computer beige. There were
banks of switches and dials on the four walls. There were speakers set into the wall up high. One of these
was broadcasting a program of sambas.
Bill presented his dogtags and the Quintiform computer hissed and clicked its approval. "Yes, Bill," it
said, "what seems to be the trouble?"
"The foot doctors on Aesclepius, the medical satellite, gave me a foot bud implant," Bill explained. "Look
what it grew into!"
The Quintiform exuded a metallic pseudopod with a blinking glass eye at the end of it and inspected


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 Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

Bill's foot.
"Wow!" the computer said. It began to chuckle.
"It's no laughing matter," Bill said. "And anyhow, robots aren't supposed to laugh."
"Sorry about that," the computer said. "Just trying to put you at your ease. Now then, I suppose you want
the doctors to fix your other foot so it will match the clawed one?"