"Robert Rankin - They Came and Ate us" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rankin Robert)

'We have already run two pilots.'

'But what about infiltration? My sources tell me that pirates have penetrated the outer networks.'

'That is being dealt with.'


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Heads nod all the way round the table. At least they know what's going on.

'Are we talking total body prosthesis?' someone asks. Which leaves all but a very few as much in
the dark as when they came in.

There now comes a similarly unexplained cut to the year 2060. It might be Earth, but it sure as
Hell looks like paradise. Grassy knolls, languid rivers, a copse or two, or they might be
thickets, it's often hard to tell even close up. Arcadian glades. Plenty of those. And panning
slowly across, some rude dwellings. Peering more closely one is able to make out certain signs
hanging above the door-ways. One says Ye Blacksmith, another Ye Miller. Another still, Ye Keeper
of Cattle. On a somewhat larger hut at the far end a sign reads Ye Ministry for Develop-ment, Land
Registration, Monetary Control and the Reinstatement of the Status Quo.

In the doorway of this hut stands a tallish, broad-shouldered, whole-headed sort of a body. He
stares into the sky and suddenly catches sight of something which may or may not be an enormous
ballpoint pen.

15

'Rambo,' he cries out excitedly to someone within the hut. 'Quickly, it's us. We're back on
again.'

'Eric, me old bucolic muckamuck,' a voice replies. 'I trust that you are not piddling windward.'

'No Rambo, honest. The biro is back. I can almost make out the exercise book and the tobacco
packet. It's Rankin, he's in the pub again and he's writing.'

'Well, glory be.' Rambo Bloodaxe, for it is indeed he, thrust his head out through the hut opening
and joined his bestest chum. 'Then if that's the way of it we're really going to make good this
time.'

'And not before time, Rambo. All these meek who have inherited the Earth are really getting up my
olfactory organ.'

16

acupuncture: A spiteful habit much favoured by the shifty

Chinese. Hugo Rune, The Book of Ultimate Truths