"Newman, Kim - Tomorrow Town" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

Richard could really do with a steak and kidney pie and chips, washed down with beer. Even a Kit-Kat would have been welcome.

"Have you a guest apartment we could use?"

Gewell's smile turned real. "Sadly, we're at maximum optimal zenvol residency. No excess space wastage in the living quarters."

"No spare beds," clarified Zootie.

"Then we'll have to take the one living space we know to be free."

Gewell's brow furrowed like a rucked-up rug.

"Zhoule's quarters," Richard explained. "We'll set up camp there. Sue-2, you must know the way. Since there are no locks we won't need keys to get in. Zenvols, it's been fascinating. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow."

Richard and Vanessa stood up, and Sue-2 followed suit.

Gewell and Jess-F glared. Moana waved bye-bye.




╖ ╖ ╖ ╖ ╖


"What are you looking for?" Vanessa asked. "Monitoring devices."
"No," said Richard, unsealing another compartment, "they're in the light fittings and the communicator screen, and seem to have been disabled. By Zhoule or his murderer, presumably."

There was a constant hum of gadgetry in the walls and from behind white-fronted compartments. The ceiling was composed of translucent panels, above which glowed a steady light.

The communicator screen was dusty. Beneath the on-off switch, volume and brightness knobs and channel selector was a telephone dial, with the Tomorrow Town alphabet (no Q or X). Richard had tried to call London but a recorded voice over a cartoon smiley face told him that visiphones only worked within the town limits. Use of the telephone line to the outside had to be approved by vote of zenvol visioneers.

In a compartment, he found a gadget whose purpose was a mystery. It had dials, a trumpet and three black rubber nipples.

"I'm just assuming, Vanessa, that the co-founder of Tomorrow Town might allow himself to sample the forbidden past in ways denied the simple zenvol or despised zenpass."

"You mean?"

"He might have real food stashed somewhere."

Vanessa started opening compartments too.

It took a full hour to search the five rooms of Zhoule's bungalow. They discovered a complete run of Town Magazeen, a microfilm publication with all text in fonetik, and a library of 1950s science fiction magazines, lurid covers mostly promising Varno Zhoule stories as backup to Asimov or Heinlein.

They found many compartments stuffed with ring-bound notebooks which dated back twenty years. Richard flicked through a couple, noting Zhoule had either been using fonetik since the early '50s or was such a bad speller that his editors must have been driven to despair. Most of the entries were single sentences, story ideas, possible inventions or prophecies. Tunel under Irish See. Rokit to Sun to harvest heet. Big lift to awbit. Stoopids not allowd to breed. Holes in heds for plugs.

Vanessa found a display case, full of plaques and awards in the shapes of spirals or robots.

"Is this the murder weapon?" Vanessa asked, indicating a needle-shaped rocket. "Looks too clean."