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

know which direction to go in, back in the corridor?"

"You said always turn right when you go through a holo. If it was in the other wall, you'd have to turn left
whenever you left home."

"How old are you?"

"How old are you?"

Her rebel smile disappeared. She blinked. "Point taken. I beg your pardon, and withdraw the question." She
sighed, pointed her wristband at the door, and the door beeped softly. "Well, are we going to stand out here
all night, or do you want supper?"

He allowed himself to become aware of the black hole at his center, and nearly fainted with sudden hunger.
He turned and opened the door-

-stopped and wiped his feet on the mat-

-stepped through and turned to see her staring at him oddly.

"What?" he demanded.

"This might just work," she said. "Isn't that hilarious?"

He suddenly started to see the whole situation from her point of view. He began to giggle.

To his astonishment, she joined him. She had not, until now, seemed to be the sort of person who giggled. It
struck him funny. Before he knew it, all his anger and most of his tension were boiling out of him as laughter.
It felt oddly like throwing up. Then his vision started doing special effects: first solarization, then
color-shimmer, and finally dissolve to random vibrant pixels.

Nearly at once it resolved again. Annie's face was a few decimeters from his, taut with concern. "Don't try to
get up."

"Okay," he said agreeably. He hadn't realized he was down.

He felt himself picked up and carried. He marveled at her strength: he was pretty sure he could not have
carried someone his own size. She set him gently on what he could tell was a bed. He tried to toe his shoes
off, but found it oddly hard to do.

"I'll get it," she said, and did. "Sleep now. You can eat later."

"Okay," he said again, and did as he was told.

THE MOMENT OF awakening can be as hard to pin down as the instant love dies. Mike's first conscious
thought was that there was a spoon in his mouth. Investigating, he found his favorite food in all the universe -
Captain Horatio's clam chowder - at the business end of it, and Annie on the other. He swallowed. His belly
told him it was at least his third or fourth spoonful of soup. It made him think of how Mom always said he
would sleep through his own hanging, and that made him want to stop thinking, so he did, and ate soup.