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

remaining traces of his old life were the clothes he stood in. He was free as a bird ... or the next best thing.

HE TOOK THE path for the Enchanted Forest, and when he got there went straight to the Unicorn's Glade ride.
As he'd expected and hoped, the line was short, almost nonexistent. Less time to fidget and fret; fewer
witnesses. Once they were inside and the cars were arriving, the crowd around him was so sparse that he
was easily able to grab the seat he needed: the last one in the train. He pulled the safety bar up and
composed his features into what he called his dweeb face. It worked; no one elected to sit with him. His heart
began to pound with elation as the train eased into motion. This was going to work! The last hurdle had been
passed, the last tricky part. From here it was as easy as falling off a log. And so of course he did just that. He
picked his moment with great care, waiting until they emerged from the dark tunnel into the first lighted
section, and everyone else would be most distracted by things ahead of them. He had already weaseled out
from under the safety bar, put the fake Dreamband in his pocket, and put on his elf hat and false nose. But as
he slipped over the side of his car and dashed for cover, he mistook a fake log for a real one, tried to hop up
onto it, slipped off, and fell headlong. Firefall, reprised -

WHEN HE SAT up, the train was out of sight. He was not sure whether he had lost consciousness or not, or if
so, for how long. With no way of knowing how soon the next train would be through, he had to assume it
would be any moment.

Get up, at least to a crouch, and put on a silly leer, empty your eyes, it's okay to look at them, they expect
that, but empty your eyes first, you are an audio-animatronic robot, here comes the train now, empty your
eyes, here it is, shit, there's somebody in the front seat looking this way, look down, oh shit, move, cover up
that shin, if she sees the blood she might report you're leaking oil, cover it with your hand while you turn that
side away from her, smile, here she comes there they go MOVE! seven, six, five, four, careful don't knock
over that robot, two, Safe!

-/ think.

He crouched down in his place of concealment behind a pseu-doboulder, and balanced risks. If the girl in the
car had seen his bleeding shin - dammit, it hurt, now that he had time for it - she might report it, in which
case he was probably screwed. How likely was it that the girl was a busybody?

Well, girls often were, in his experience. But she might simply assume that the blood was fake, part of the
show. A wounded Elf for the Unicorn to heal.

The audio-animatronic robot he had dodged on his way to cover - a wizened old Elf - was coming toward him,
making faintly audible whirring sounds. That was odd - he was sure that none of the robots had an itinerary
that brought them through this space; he had been on this ride dozens of times, studying, rehearsing. Hell -
perhaps this one was malfunctioning, in some way that was registering on a dial somewhere in Central
Control! Time to move on. But the robot Elf stood between him and the rest of the diorama, coming closer. He
backed out of its way, deeper into cover.

It stopped where he had been crouching, and crouched itself. Its faint little servo-sounds ceased. Its
monkeylike face swiveled to track him.

It winked.

And said, "If you leave that bloodstain out there on the set, they'll know, and they won't rest until they find
you."