"Nancy Kress - Borovsky's Hollow Woman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

"Damn right. How could the Combine possibly build a level that Johnny Coyne couldn't stand up in?"
His bulldog face remained expressionless as he undogged Laura's plates, but the other men in the
automated tavern laughed.
Coyne glowered. "When they run out of men like me to build it, who will they get to do the work?"
Andre Wolf Lair was sitting at one of the black plastic benches near the robot bar at the far end. He
took a long draft from his carved wooden stein, wiped the foam from his lips, and laughed deeply.
"When they run out of men like you they will use real men, and we will work twice as fast."
Coyne opened his mouth. Wolf Lair leaned toward Coyne, who saw the warning in the giant's eyes,
and looked away.
In his blue, working long johns, Borovsky stepped free of Laura. She buttoned up and leaned against
the wall among several other suits, some like her, others mere rubber. Laura watched Borovsky key up a
beer into a disposable stein at the bar and walk back toward Wolf Lair.
"Let them build out to E Minus Fifteen," Borovsky said, and took a mouthful of foam. "I will stand
after the last man has started to crawl."
"After two hours here I doubt any of us could stand in free fall," said another man. General laughter
followed, to Laura's relief. Among the Beer Tube's customers tonight was a shift boss, Simon Weinblatt,
who was sitting with several of Borovsky's co-workers and trading jokes with them. The man was of
only average height and build and seemed slight beside Borovsky and Wolf Lair. Like all shift bosses,
Weinblatt had a soft-spoken, gentle demeanor and a keen understanding of human motivation. When
tensions flared, shift bosses had a way of showing up, quieting the situation, and making forty rough,
quarrelsome laborers cooperate and produce. Their methods could be as rough as those of the laborers.
Every man there had heard tales of drunken steelworkers who had defied shift bosses and found that
their jobs evaporated the following morning. And there was another story, hundredth hand at least, of a
man who had traded angry words with a shift boss and shoved him to the floor - only to awaken in a
prison hospital bed with both arms gone past the elbows.
Laura saw that Weinblatt had been inconspicuously watching Borovsky and Coyne. When Borovsky
went back to the bar for a second beer, Weinblatt placed a hand on his elbow. Borovsky bent down to
listen; the man spoke quietly. "You have an accident at work?" Weinblatt pointed to his own cheek.
Borovsky's eyebrows rose, and Laura thought he grew a little pale. There was still some slight

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discoloration from the bruise that had covered half his face.
"Fell outta bed. No big deal."
Coyne squeezed past on his way to the bar for yet another beer. Laura longed to get Borovsky back
within her and away from there.
Even with a raucous album playing in the background, Coyne appeared to have heard the exchange.
He laughed belligerently and poked Borovsky with his index finger.
"Fell outta bed, huh? Dreaming about one of those Rooski women, I guess. All muscle and three tits;
a pair and a spare!" Coyne doubled over laughing. Borovsky stiffened but remained silent.
Weinblatt did not seem bothered by the banter. Through a grin he rejoined: "At least he remembers to
dream about women. After ten beers I'll bet you spend all night making love to your handling machine."
Coyne shrugged as his stein filled. "There ain't no words for the kind of women I dream about."
From the next table another man joined in: "That's because the Combine ain't started making 'em yet!"
Coyne belched loudly. He shook his head and made his way to the rear of the tavern, where a dozen
space suits stood or hung near the lock. He stood in front of Laura and addressed the crowd with a full
stein in his hand.
"Ha! The expert on mechanical women is right here among us! Our good friend Mik-Hayal Borovsky
and his patented hollow woman! She cooks, she cleans, she cheats at cards, she tells dirty jokes. What