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

SHOCK MIGHT HAVE paralyzed his limbs and tongue, but instead the reverse happened. From his hunkered
crouch he exploded into something very like a Russian saber dancer's four-limbed hah! kick, and a shout grew
in his stomach and raced like vomit up his throat -

- where he nearly choked on it, because the robot, moving faster than any robot he knew, seemed to have a
hand over his mouth, and another behind his head to brace against. He tried to yank free, and what stopped
him was not the futility of pitting his strength against that of a robot, but the sudden realization of how difficult
it was not. The robot hands were strong, stronger than his own-but far less strong than they should have
been. They were warm.

Too many urgent inputs will cause most information systems to crash, and he had been in crummy shape to
start with. He went limp.

The Elf caught him under the arms, gently laid him down in a spot where he would be concealed from view,
and stood back up.

Another train came through. He lay there dizzily and watched the Elf mime a plausible routine for it. The soft
sounds of servomechanisms and hydraulics, the sharp sounds of clattering wheels and laughing children, and
the sequentially fading series of Xerox copies that echo made of all these, all washed over him. They very
nearly overwhelmed the sound of his heart banging in his chest.

"I've had my eye on you for the last week or so," the Elf murmured when the train was past, without looking
at him. "I figured you were going to make your move soon. I like the way you handle yourself. You have
respect, and you're not stupid."

"You're human," he said softly, wonderingly.

The Elf grimaced. "Thanks a lot."

"You're a-a-" He scrambled back up to a crouch. "-a. girl."

"Make up your mind," she said. "Am I human or not?" She sounded like an aunt or a teacher. As old as her Elf
persona looked, and sour. But she was no taller than he was. "Oh, the hell with it. Wait here."

She straightened up, making soft mechanical humming sounds again - he realized with wonder and some
amusement that she was actually humming them - and walked around the boulder, out onto the set of the
Unicorn's Glade and into view of its patrons. He had practiced imitating robot movements a great deal, but this
. . . person . . . was much better. He scrambled to the edge of cover to watch her.

She walked in a seemingly random pattern that led her past the spot where he had first fallen and hurt his
shin. When she reached it, she improvised a move which was in character for her Elf persona, and which
brought her down on one knee. She remained on that knee until a train had passed, slid the knee back and
forth along the floor, then rose and returned to his place of concealment. The blood that had been on the
floor was now almost invisible on her dark trouser leg.

"Come on," she said, and continued past him.

Doing his own robot walk, he followed her . . .