"Robert Rankin - Brentford 04 - The Sprouts Of Wrath" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

'Rubbish,' spluttered the reddening Ffog. They're . .. er . . . bean-frames.'
Philip Cameron was unconvinced. Paul Geronimo whispered loudly to the effect that 'brown-hatted brother
heap big bondage fan'.
This is an invasion of privacy!' cried Ffog. 'So where is the bloody stadium then, under the ground?'
Lucas Mucus shook his cropped head. 'On the contrary, very much over the ground, as it happens.'
'Oh, yes!' crowed Ffog. 'And where do you propose to put it?'
 Mucus took up a pointer. 'Here, here, here, here and here,' he dipped variously about the borough.
Clyde Ffog looked baffled. Ms Naylor said, 'I think you'd better demonstrate, Lucas.'
'Certainly, madam. If you would be so kind, Julian.'
Julian smiled, nodded and, stooping, withdrew from a compartment in the trolley a glittering object approxi-
mately a third of the size of the model village. It had much the look of a flat star which contained at its centre a
dancehall mirror-globe. Julian held it out proudly before the assembly. The Star Stadium,' he said. If he had been
hoping for a round of applause then he was to be sorely disappointed.
'And where would you like to stick that?' asked Ffog pointedly.
'Lucas, if you would be so kind.'
Lucas nodded with politeness and pressed a small button at the side of the model. There was a hiss of
hydraulics, and from each of the five locations previously appointed arose a telescopic column. When these had
risen to their full extent, Julian stepped forward and placed the 'star' gently upon them, tip upon tip. 'Wallah,' he
said.
Lucas made free with his pointer. The columns will be five hundred feet high,' he said proudly. Traffic will flow

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into the North and East legs directly from the Great West Road, to rise upon a continuous belt lift to parking
bays beneath the stadium. Each area between star tip and sphere houses an Olympic village, the central sphere
a stadium seating five hundred thousand, swimming pools, full games complexes, etc., etc., etc.'
'Hold on, hold on,' blustered Clyde Ffog. 'You are seriously proposing to hang this thing above Brentford?
Apart from the obvious dangers, it will plunge half the town into permanent darkness.'
'Do you think so?' Julian asked. 'Look closely at the model.'
Clyde Ffog gave the thing a good squinting. To his amazement he realized that the stadium cast no shadow.
There is no shadow!' he exclaimed.
That heap big medicine by any reckoning,' declared Barry.
'A scientific breakthrough,' said Lucas. The top of the stadium is covered in solar cells, these absorb light
and project it through similar cells on the underside. In fact, when the real stadium is completed it will appear
literally invisible from below, there will simply be the appearance of a clear sky.'
'If not talking out back of loincloth then that technological miracle of first magnitude,' Barry said, nodding
respectfully. 'Nobel prize in that for inventor.'
That is only one small miracle,' said Lucas. 'You mentioned obvious danger did you not?'
Clyde nodded fiercely, 'What if the whole shebang falls down on Brentford? Don't tell me you can put up a
thing like that without something getting dropped, or falling off!'
'Julian,' said Lucas. Julian reached into his trouser pocket and withdrew a flat black disc about the size of an
old penny. This, ladies and gentlemen, is "Gravitite". A self-buoyant polysilicate which has rather special
qualities.' He held the disc between thumb and forefinger and then released it. To general amazement and
gasps of

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disbelief it did not fall to the floor, as one might reasonably expect. Instead it remained where it was, suspended
in the air in defiance of all the laws of nature, or some of them at least.
That not heap big medicine,' said Barry Geronimo. That fucking impossible!'
'Not really,' said Julian Membrane. 'You see, it is not actually defying gravity. The disc is falling, but it is
falling so slowly that its movement is scarcely perceptible. So you see the stadium is really only moored to the