"Jim Munroe - Angry Young Spaceman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Munroe Jim)

where the xenophobe and I had been sitting.
I walked to the stool where it should have been, hope draining out and
self-loathing filling the empty space.
тАЬWhattalitbe, buddy,тАЭ the charliebot said.
тАЬDid you see a Speak-O-Matic in a triangular caseтАФтАЭ
тАЬWe canтАЩt be responsible for items left on the premises,тАЭ it said, starting
to polish a glass.
I looked over at the humans, who had heard the exchange. One of them
shook her head.
A trip to the lost-and-found office revealed that items of that cost were
rarely returned, and that the number of employees who wore grey
body-suits numbered in the hundreds. I took a seat in the waiting area,
watching families reunite and break apart.
One recently reunited family of metal triangle people sat down beside
me and started tinkling to one another. Two little ones had bravely taken
the chair next to me. They were swivelling towards me and talking, and
my casual curiosity as to what they were saying swelled up; and was
suddenly smacked down by the reality of the situation.
I canтАЩt believe I lost my fuckinтАЩ brand new Speak-O-Matic.
Suddenly the lovely tinkling became too much to bear, and I stood.




***


It was the longest line-up IтАЩd ever been in in my twenty-three years, and
there was a long way yet to go. In the distance I could see the glass tube
that arched over the landing pads and kissed the rocket ship.
The shock of losing my Speak-O-Matic was wearing off. I was
calculating how long I had worked at the foundry to earn the credits it
cost: three months, I figured. I imagined pounding my friend in grey for
about three months, to even the score.
A part of me, the stubbornly pug part, was grumbling: If I had left him
in a bloody heap in the first place, he wouldnтАЩt be sneaking off anywhere
for a while.
We finally turned the corner and started moving through the tube. The
rocketship was this old model, but still shiny тАФ a classic, and I was excited
despite myself. The last time I went offworld, it was in a ship just like this
one, and I had been amazed by the size. I had known the toy I had at home
was smaller, but I had expected something just a little bigger than the
family floater.
Now I was amazed at how small the rocketship seemed, in comparison
to the endless line of people. How were we all gonna fit in that skinny
thing?
The tube vibrated a bit as another rocket blasted off. The ignition fire
whipped shadows on and off the faces of the other people in the line. Other
than the occasional alien, they were mostly human тАФ not a single Octavian
in the lot. I looked back as far as I could, then forward as much as I could