"Robert Reed - The Caldera of Good Fortune" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

amount that would make him the perfect companion: Not too much, but then
again, not so cheap that theyтАЩd think he was begging for the honor.

For a long, delightful moment, those two lovely faces stared at him.

Then together, without a word being said, they approached the twin
AIs, alerting them of their presence with a pointed finger and a spark of
static electricity.

Moments later, a cable car pulled out of the station, four passengers
rising silently into the darkness.

This hadnтАЩt worked out at all. Crockett waited a few moments, and
then he stood, putting on his hood, preparing for the sad walk home.

A lone figure stepped into the vacant station.

Countless aliens were passengers on the Great Ship. According to
official counts, thousands of species were among the wealthy,
exceptionally important souls onboard, and some aliens took a multitude of
physical forms. Of course not every entity wished to visit the Caldera of
Good Fortune. But Crockett had never met the species standing before
him. Even a rapid search of reliable databases came up with nothing but a
few similar creatures. The entity was humanoid and small, with a tiny
sucking mouth and smoky white eyes large enough to nearly fill its elliptical
face. Those odd eyes regarded Crockett for a contemplative moment. And
then, through its translator, the creature asked, тАЬWhat would be a fair price
to ride with me? Up to the top...?тАЭ

Crockett sliced what was fair in half.

He would have done it for free, happily. But then again, he was still a
little upset that his girlfriends had so brazenly ignored him.

****

2

During those years and decades while the caldera slept, tourists arriving at
the hamlet were as likely to gaze at the sky as to stare at the Luckies.
Onboard the Great Ship, every habitat wore an elaborate disguiseтАФfalse
horizons painted on cavern walls, with suns and stars wheeling overhead on
what was only rock and timeless hyperfiber. But most of these illusions
demanded pragmatism over accuracy. A green sky might show clouds and
two lovely suns, and then the suns would set, revealing stars by the
thousands aligned in a pattern that matched a cherished view some
thousand light-years in the past. But modest telescopes focused on any of
those stars would reveal the fiction: This artificial cosmos was composed
of simple, bland specks of light. Only the brightest few pretended to spit
out flares and gas. Only the nearest few were accompanied by the faint