"Spider Robinson - Post Toast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

now -- who said that the first time he heard the TERM 'speed freak,' before he had any idea what that
lifestyle entailed, he knew It Was Him. Well, the drug alt.callahans was designed to mate perfectly with
my own endorphin receptors. I can easily see myself disappearing up my own anus, (virtually) partying
away the hours...
"...and never publishing another fucking word. Not the Callahan/Lady Sally/Mary's Place stuff, and
not the other fifty percent of what I write, alone and with Jeanne, which is just as good and just as
important to me -- and hopefully to some percentage of the literate public.
"Even worse, the problem is not limited to USENET. My sister-in-law Dolly tells me ANOTHER
Callahan's Place, smaller but just as cool, recently coalesced in a ficton called AOL...
"I hear the Siren call, and my heart aches to heed it...but I have a family to feed, and rent to pay, and
debt to service, and a deep primordial completely eco-irresponsible compulsion not to rest until the last
tree on my earth has been hacked down, sliced into strips, and stained with graffitti of my composition.
Gaea forgive me..."
"I'm a vegetarian, myself," Long-Drink remarks. "I don't give a damn about animals." He grins
sadistically. "But I HATE plants..."
Ignoring him magnificently, Jake says, "Then there's only one thing to do, Spider."
Spider looks alert. (One of his better impressions.)
Zoey says it for her old man. "You gotta write them one long letter, with no return address. You
gotta tell 'em that you love 'em and that you're grateful to 'em and that you wish 'em all well. Tell 'em they
make you feel proud and humble and awed and gratified all at the same time, and make sure they know
they're never gonna be far from your thoughts as long as you live...and maybe ask 'em while they're busy
rewriting you to remember that you always tried to be kind to your characters."
(sustained rumble of agreement, at which Spider blushes)
"And you gotta tell them," Tanya Latimer says, "that WE love them, too, and that we thank them for
making us all feel just a little bit less superfluous...for making us feel that all our struggles and trials have
been WORTH something, have MEANT something...even if it's only to people in another world. I don't
know about anybody else here, but I -- " She catches herself. "No, I DO know about everybody else
here. We're all gonna sleep GOOD tonight..."
(louder rumble of agreement)
"You have to tell them everything you just told us," Doc Webster said, "and make them a quick toast
or two...and then tap-dance out the door and go back to work."
(rumble graduates to table-thumping)
"He's right," Jake calls. "Hell, you don't visit US more than every other year or so, and you're always
gone as soon as you fill up a floppy. And God knows you're always welcome when you do show.
You're the kind of pal, it's okay if a few years slip by."
(thumping becomes cheer)
Spider stands a little straighter, and for a moment looks both older and younger than 47. "Thank
you, Jake. Thank you all. As it happens, your advice is exactly my plan." He produces a tape recorder
from thin air. "All this is going to be transcribed and sent to alt.callahans, along with a sample chapter
from CALLAHAN'S LEGACY. I just felt like it was time I connected you both, this ficton and that one,
directly -- if only by proxy. It's a pity Solace is gone, or she could have put you in realtime contact. She
was a ficton very much like USENET herself...well, anyway, the job is done, so the only thing left to do
is make my toast, and then -- by way of thanking you and them for letting me pull on your coat-tail so
long -- to play you all out with a song."
For the first time, he lifts his glass of Bushmill's, and every glass, mug, flask and jelly jar in the room
rises in unison with it.
The silence is total.
"To all the Callahan's Places there ever were or ever will be," Spider Robinson says, "whatever they
may be called -- and to all the merry maniacs and happy fools who are fortunate enough to stumble into
one: may none of them arrive too late!" And he drains his 1608 in a single draught, and hurls his glass