"Barry N. Malzberg - Major League Triceratops" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

ceased, I guess todayтАЩs the day.

Hunting time, Muffy said. Get a square into the belly and onto the range. Poor little warrior.

Dix? HeтАЩs a contest winner.

No, Muffy said, not Dix. HeтАЩs got what heтАЩll be getting. You. YouтАЩre the one. All suffering because of
your rhinoceros out there.

It isnтАЩt that, Robles said, it isnтАЩt that at all. CanтАЩt we forget this? CanтАЩt we let it be?

That was your decision all the time. You can come and play inside if you want. It isnтАЩt all dead things.

No, Robles said. He shook his head. I told you, I canтАЩt. But weтАЩre doing something wrong, Muffy. It
isnтАЩt right, not what weтАЩre doing here. This is not the way it was supposed to be. Bringing Dix to Camp
Paradox, giving him a gun, setting him loose here.

This is hardly the time, she said. That was all decided a long time ago, worked out by people like you.
LetтАЩs make reveille and go out on the trails and watch Dix a-hunting go. Then weтАЩll be out of here.

WeтАЩre never out of here.

YouтАЩre out of me. WouldnтАЩt you like to get back inside? You can, you know. ItтАЩs what you want to do.
What do you want? She grasped his hand, bent it suddenly at the wrist, sent a splinter of pain up his arm.
Robles shrieked. Comeon, she said. Say it, do it. What do youwant?

Anachronism, Robles said, rubbing his arm, shaking the wrist. Time out of time. I want it to mesh. I want
confluence, can you understand that?

Do business, she said, keep your eye on the sparrow. Go sparrow-hunting, let Dix take primordial
rhinoceros over there.

Business, he said. There seemed nothing more to say. Not introspective under the best conditions, the
convolutions of the tour had made him utterly unable to cope. Big business.

Not for Dix, Muffy said, taking his hand, rubbing the arm expertly, working blood into the sprain. Not for
him though.

Pleasure?

Try again, Muffy said.

FURTHER OBSERVATIONS
Rhinolike as they might have been,Triceratops nonetheless dropped eggs. The cutting edge theories had
been wrong: they werenтАЩt warm-blooded, they did not carry or suckle their young. Robles had taken it
badly, seeing his teleology upset. He had envisionedTriceratops as a pinnacle: first the fire-breathers,
then the vegetarians, then the long, galumphingStruthiomimus, big as hangarports, dense as earth, two
brains, one prick. They all laid eggs, Robles believed, exceptTriceratops, the advance model,
major-leagueTriceratops had vaulted to the next stage. Except that it hadnтАЩt. Like all the rest, it laid its
seed in the cold, cold ground, abandoned it there. No home on the range forTriceratops, no family life at