"James Patrick Kelly - Fruitcake Theory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

case of holiday spirit, even though he doesnТt know an
elf from an elephant. He wants to do a little shopping.
ItТs a security nightmare, but we accommodate him. We
always do because weТre asking for the Kuvat
encyclopedia for Christmas. Not that we know whatТs in
it exactly, but these creatures come from a planet a
hundred and thirty light years away. TheyТre bound to
have a grand unified theory, the secret of cool fusion,
and a cure for cellulite.
=Persons?= The rooster turns toward us. =This one has
hunger.=
"Me too. I havenТt eaten since dinner." Bjorn is always
happy to interact with our charge. "Wait until you see
the food court at this mall. ItТs totally grade. Must be
thirty different kinds of ethnic." HeТs starting to
bubble with enthusiasm; I give him a needle stare.
"Well, maybe only twenty," he mutters.
=This one has also thirst, persons.=
"This one is called Maggie." I touch my chest.
"Mag-gie." The rooster canТt tell humans apart. This
continues to annoy me; IТve been following him for four
months and he still doesnТt know who I am.
=Laughing all the way, person, ha, ha, ha.=
There is some debate as to the accuracy of Kuvat
translations.
IТm sick of this rooster. IТve asked to follow any other
Kuvat, preferably a scarecrow, but IТd even settle for
another rooster. As far as we know, there are four
besides this one. Roosters donТt have names, donТt ask
me why. At first we gave them nicknames -- Dodo, Dopey,
Dumbo, Ding-dong, and Dufus -- only when Balfour found
out, she pitched a fit. Our job was to follow, observe,
and protect the Kuvat, she said, not to make snide
remarks. She doesnТt even like us calling them roosters.
When she overheard Jasper laughing about "Dopey" back in
August, she pulled him from the following team and
banished him to Waste Assessment, where he sifts through
Kuvat garbage and samples their sewage.
This rooster has been the most rambunctious tourist of
the five. Since the Kuvat landed in May, heТs been to
the pyramids and the Taj Mahal and the Eiffel Tower.
HeТs crazy about zoos and disneys. He saw the third game
of the я08 World Series and was a Special Guest at the
Sixty-Sixth World Science Fiction Convention. He seems
to be partnered with Kasaan, the scarecrow who is the
leader of the Kuvat expedition.
Bjorn has signed on to the theory that the roosters are
scouting us and make detailed reports back to the
scarecrows, who rarely leave the compound weТve built
around their starship. This theory is conveniently