"Spider Robinson - The Free Lunch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

He snapped out of it and raced after her.

IT WAS A little like learning that one unicorn exists. It changed everything.

Mike felt like a biochemist who has labored for years to synthesize a wonderful new drug, then learns
aborigine herb-doctors have known about that one for centuries. As they moved behind the scenes of
Dreamworld, he tried to pay attention to his surroundings, but had trouble keeping his mind on the task. His
eyes kept being drawn to his guide. His hero, now that he knew she existed. Mike's hopeless, desperate,
quixotic quest was actually possible. Someone had done it. This unprepossessing midget auntie before him
had done it. Had been doing it for longer than he had been alive.

No wonder she wasn't lonely! She had the Unicorn, the Warlock, Westley and Buttercup, the Mother Thing,
the Hippogriff, Wanda the Werepoodle, Captain Horatio and his crew, Master Li and Number Ten Ox, Mike
Callahan and his friends, Moondog Johnny, Lummox and John Thomas, and all the countless Elves and Trolls
and Leprechauns and Dwarves for her constant companions. No wonder she looked so serene! For longer
than his own lifetime, she had been living not just in a, but in the, Dreamworld. No wonder she accepted him.
They were kindred spirits, in a world of clones. He studied her with intense fascination. So that was how she
walked when she wasn't imitating a robot. . . .

It suddenly came to him that he had absolutely no idea how they had gotten from where they started to
where they were now - which was halfway down a long tubular shaft with a ladder on one side. There were
the rumbling sounds of a ride somewhere nearby, but he could neither locate its direction nor identify it, save
that it seemed to be moving too fast to be any part of the Unicorn's Glade. He glanced up, and the shaft
appeared simply to end about fifty meters higher up: no access hatch was visible. He glanced down and saw
only that he was lagging behind.

When he reached the bottom of the ladder, Annie stood aside and made room for him to step down onto the
metal floor. She gestured at a keypad on the wall. "Do what I did up there," she said.
"I didn't see it," he confessed, reddening in shame.

She clouded up. "I told you not to make me repeat myself. What the hell were you looking at?"

"You," he said miserably.

She closed her eyes. "Oh, my stars and garters. 'God has punished my contempt for authority . . .' " She
sighed and reopened her eyes. "At least have the wit to pay particular attention to my hands, then. I do most
of my best work with them."

"Yes, Annie."

With insultingly exaggerated pantomime, she addressed the keypad and punched in a four-digit number. A
door silently dilated next to the keypad. "Got it this time?"

"How do you know what number to use?" he asked.

"From this." She held up her left wrist to display a Command Band like those worn by Dreamworld's
employees. It resembled a Guest's Dreamband, with pop-up monitor and keypad added. She hadn't been
wearing it during her stint as an Elf; she must have slipped it on while he wasn't looking. "It also makes me
invisible to three different surveillance systems-and you, too, as long as you stay within three meters of me."