"Fritz Leiber - A Bad Day for Sales" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leiber Fritz)

A BAD DAY FOR SALES
Fritz Leiber
by




The big bright doors of the office building parted with a pneumatic whoosh and Robie glided ontoTimes
Square . The crowd that had been watching the fifty-foot-tall girl on the clothing billboard get dressed, or
reading the latest news about the Hot Trucescrawl itself in yard-high script, hurried to look.
Robie was still a novelty. Robie was fun. For a little while yet, he could steal the show. But the attention
did not make Robie proud. He had no more emotions than the pink plastic giantess, who dressed and
undressed endlessly whether there was a crowd or the street was empty, and who never once blinked
her blue mechanical eyes. But she merely drew business while Robie went out after it.
For Robie was the logical conclusion of the development of vending machines. All the earlier ones had
stood in one place, on a floor or hanging on a wall, and blankly delivered merchandise in return for coins,
whereas Robie searched for customers. He was the demonstration model of a line of sales robots to be
manufactured by Shuler Vending Machines, provided the public invested enough in stocks to give the
company capital to go into mass production.
The publicity Robie drew stimulated investments handsomely. It was amusing to see the TV and
newspaper coverage of Robie selling, but not a fraction as much fun as being approached personally by
him. Those who were usually bought anywhere from one to five hundred shares, if they had any money
and foresight enough to see that sales robots would eventually be on every street and highway in the
country.
Robie radared the crowd, found that it surrounded him solidly, and stopped. With a carefully built-in
sense of timing, he waited for the tension and expectation to mount before he began talking.
тАЬSay, Ma, he doesnтАЩt look like a robot at all,тАЭ a child said. тАЬHe looks like a turtle.тАЭ
Which was not completely inaccurate.The lower part of RobieтАЩs body was a metal hemisphere hemmed
with sponge rubber and not quite touching the sidewalk. The upper was a metal box with black holes in
it. The box could swivel and duck.
A chromium-bright hoopskirt with a turret on top.
тАЬReminds me too much of the Little Joe Paratanks,тАЭ a legless veteran of the Persian War muttered, and
rapidly rolled himself away on wheels rather like RobieтАЩs.
His departure made it easier for some of those who knew about Robie to open a path in the crowd.
Robie headed straight for the gap. The crowd whooped.
Robie glided very slowly down the path, deftly jogging aside whenever he got too close to ankles in
skylon or sockassins. The rubber buffer on his hoopskirt was merely an added safeguard.
The boy who had called Robie a turtle jumped in the middle of the path and stood his ground, grinning
foxily.
Robie stopped two feet short of him. The turret ducked. The crowd got quiet.
тАЬHello, youngster,тАЭ Robie said in a voice that was smooth as that of a TV star, and was, in fact, a
recording of one.
The boy stopped smiling. тАЬHello,тАЭ he whispered.
тАЬHow old are you?тАЭ Robie asked.
тАЬNine.No, eight.тАЭ
тАЬThatтАЩs nice,тАЭ Robie observed. A metal arm shot down from his neck, stopped just short of the boy.
The boy jerked back.
тАЬFor you,тАЭ Robie said.
The boy gingerly took the redpolly- lop from the neatly fashioned blunt metal claws, and began to
unwrap it.