"The Collapsium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mccarthy Wil)

Cursing once more, Bruno waved the floor and ceiling lights back up. Glass
windows appeared in the walls, admitting the morning sun once again. His
furniture reverted to woodЧwellwood, anywayЧits colored controls and displays
vanishing, leaving smooth surfaces behind. A couple of murals appeared beneath
the stenciled images of telescopes and rocket-ships on the walls. This was a
plain roomЧsmall, uncluttered and maybe a little old-fashionedЧ-exactly as Bruno
felt a study should be.
"I apologize for not detecting the vessel sooner," the house said with quiet,
reflexive contrition.
"It's all right," Bruno grumbled, and surprised himself by meaning it. Nothing
genuinely new had happened around here for a very long time. There'd been no
reason to expectЕ anything, really.
"The vessel is approaching much faster than a neutronium barge would do," the
house went on, as if feeling the need to explain itself. "Anticipating nothing
of the kind, I'd set the detection radii much too close. The failure of your
experiment was likely a direct result."
Bruno waved himself a door and exited into the living room, a mess of models and
food containers and discarded clothing, which was exactly as that should be, but
seeing it now he nodded, pursed his lips and said, "Stop apologizing and clean
this up. If we're to have company, we must be presentable, yes? What's the ID on
the ship?"
"None available, sir. Our network gate is nonfunctional. For four years now."
"Oh. Right."
The robot servants were neither wholly autonomous nor wholly appendages of the
house software, neither self-aware nor rigidly programmed. Creatures of silent
intuition, they danced through their chores like dreams, like puppets in some
tightly choreographed ballet. They knew just what paths to take, what joints to
swivel or extend, their economy of motion perfect. They knew just where to put
everything, too; most of the clutter was faxware and went back into the fax for
recycling, but some objects were original or natural or otherwise sentimental,
and each found a place on a shelf or table, or in his bedroom closet around the
corner. Speaking of whichЕ
"Seal that," he said, gesturing at the bedroom door. It slid closed at once,
merged with the wall, sprouted bright mural paintsЧnonrepresentational.
He grunted his approval, then asked, "ETA?"
"Five minutes, twenty seconds."
He grunted again, less approving this time. The house had standing orders never
to mark time in secondsЧthere were just too many of them, a whole eternity's
worth. But under the circumstances, he supposed it had little choice.
Visitors.
Visitors! Suddenly alarmed, he sniffed himself. "Damn, I probably stink. These
clothes are probably ugly. Bathe and dress me, please. Quickly!"
The robots were there so fast they might well have anticipated the request. Cap
and vest and tunic and breeches were torn from Bruno's body and hurled into the
fax orifice for recycling. He forced himself to relax, to let his arms be
lifted, his torso turned. The robots, with their faceless expressions of
infinite gentleness, would rather die than cause him the slightest injury or
discomfort, and any resistance on his part would only slow them down, make them
gentler still. He let them work, and in another moment their metal hands were
buffing him with sponges and damp, scented cloths. A wellstone grease magnet was