"Heinlein, Robert A - To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

`Ten thousand, Dr Weisskopf? Even money.'

`You're on. What do you place as the cause of death, sir?'

'Don't try to trap me, Doctor. "Cause of death" is your job:

'His heart stopped.?'

'Brilliant, Doctor, brilliant! But why did it stop?'

In the case of judge Hardacres, for some years the question has been: What keeps him alive? Before I express an opinion I want to place him on a slab and slice him up. I may have been hasty; he may turn out not to have had a heart.'

`Are you going to cut him up to learn something, or to make certain he stays dead?'

'Noisy in here, isn't it? Do you release the body? I'll have it taken downtown.'

`Hand me a form nine-oh-four and I'll drop it. Just keep the meat out of sight of our guests. Grand Hotel Augustus does not have guests dying on its premises.'

'Dr Ridpath, I was handling such things discreetly before you slid through that diploma mill.'

'I'm sure you were, Adolf. Lawn ball later?'

'Thank you, Eric. Yes.'

`And dinner after; Zenobia will be expecting you. I'll pick you up at the morgue.'

`Oh, I'm sorry! I'm taking my assistant to the Mayor's Orgy.'

`No fuss. Zenobia would never miss the first big party of Fiesta; we'll all go together. So bring her with you.'

'Him, not her.'

'Pardon my raised eyebrows; I thought you had sworn off. Very well; bring him.'

'Eric, don't you find it depressing to be so cynical? He's a satyr, not a goose.'

'So much the better. With Fiesta starting at sundown, Zenobia will welcome any gallant indecency he offers her, as long as he does not break her bones.'

This silly chatter had told me one thing: I was not in New Liverpool. New Liverpool does not celebrate Fiesta - and this local festival sounded like Fasching in Munich combined with Carnival in Rio, with a Brixton riot thrown in. So, not New Liverpool. What city, what planet, what year, and what universe remained to be seen. Then I would have to see what could be done about my predicament. Clothes. Money. Status. Then, how to get home. But I was not worried. As long as the body is warm and the bowels move regularly no problem can be other than minor and temporary.

The two doctors were still sneering at each other when I suddenly realized that I had heard not one word of Galacta.

Not even Spanglish. They were speaking English, almost the harsh accent of my girlhood, with idiom and vocabulary close to that of my native Missouri.

Maureen, this is ridiculous.

While flunkies were getting ready to move the body (disguised as a nameless something draped in dust covers) the medical examiner (coroner?) got a signed release from the house physician, and both started to leave. I stopped the latter.

'Dr Ridpath!'