"James Patrick Kelly - Ninety Percent of Everything" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kelly James Patrick)

"Can I interest you in a short ride?"
"You might, but you haven't. Look, Mr. Wetherall, I've got a Curriculum
Committee meeting in five minutes, and a graduate seminar on Primate Sexology
in an hour and a half. I've got three thesis advisees backed up outside my
door and no time to waste giving you a crash course in exobiology."
"I just bought ten square miles of salt flats near Eastline, Nevada,"
Wetherall said.
"I'll be right down."
****
As with Ramsdel Wetherall, there was too much speculation and too few facts
concerning the shitdogs.
To start, we did not know where they came from. Astronomers spotted the
ship that brought the shitdogs to us only eighteen hours before it went into
orbit. It made just three revolutions of the earth before splitting into five
vehicles which entered the atmosphere and made soft landings in barren salt
flats: Chile's Atacama Desert, Australia southeast of Lake Disappointment, the
Tsagan Nor basin of the Gobi Desert, the Danakil Plain in Ethiopia. And
Eastline, Nevada.
What followed was well documented at all five landing sites. In the
United States, fighters from Edwards Air Force Base scrambled and followed the
mushroom-shaped lander to touchdown. The Marines arrived shortly after and
cordoned off the area. It was fifty-three minutes before the head of the first
shitdog poked out of the lander. The Marines assumed that it was coming
through some kind of hatch. It wasn't until all five shitdogs had emerged from
different exits that the onlookers understood.
The shitdogs were eating their spaceship.
****
On my way out I ran into Saintjohn Matthewson, the chair of the department.
"Oh, Liz, I'm glad I caught you before the meeting. I'm going to need
that justification for the new curriculum by next Tuesday; the provost's
breathing down my neck. And the corporate sponsors for the freshman chip
implant program want to do some more pix of the experimental classroom to
include in their annual corporate report."
"But you said I had another month. Registration hasn't even turned in
the enrollment figures."
"I have every confidence in you, Elizabeth. That's why I appointed
you." He turned toward the conference room, then paused to admire his profile
reflected in the window. "By the way, have you noticed the springs are broken
on the sofa in the faculty lounge? Almost as if someone's been jumping up and
down on it. Have the Building Committee order a new one, and keep the cost
down."
"But Saintjohn -- "
"Oh, and could you be an angel and get the coffee going before we sit
down? I'm afraid this is going to be a long session."
He cruised ahead of me into the room. I stood outside the door for a
moment and took a deep breath. Then I turned and went down the stairs and out
onto the quad.
The pix of Judy Jolly Freeze on the side of the van waved and chuckled
at me. "Please step to the rear door, Liz."
As I walked round to the back, pixes of Charley Cone and Billy Bar