"Allen Steele - Agape Among The Robots" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

and for a moment I thought he was going to start stammering again. I saw the denial coming,
though, so I headed it off. "Look, everyone knows you two were once an item. Frankly, I donтАЩt
care, but if it makes any difference, IтАЩm not going to tell Jim. Just to satisfy my curiosity,
though . . ."

"Ummm . . . yeah, weтАЩve started seeing each other again." He seemed mortified by the
admission. "But not on company time," he quickly added. "WeтАЩve only gone out a couple of
times."

Somehow, that sounded like a lie. I didnтАЩt keep track of DarthтАЩs hours, but I knew for a fact that
Phil practically lived at the lab, going so far as to keep a fresh change of clothes in his office
closet and a toothbrush in his desk. "Sure, sure, I believe you. Just dinner and a movie now and
then, right?"

"Yeah, t-t-thatтАЩs all." He nodded, perhaps a little too quickly . . . and that stutter of his was better
than a polygraph. "P-p-please donтАЩt let anyone know. If Jim fi-fi-fi-finds out w-w-weтАЩre . . ."

"I know, I know." And thatтАЩs what bothered him the most, the chance that Jim Lang would
discover that the leaders of his two rival tiger-teams were having an affair. For a chess player,
that would be like finding out that the white queen and the black king were sneaking off the
board to fool around. "Trust me, Slim JimтАЩs never going to learn about this . . . or at least from
me, at any rate."

Phil nodded gratefully, then his face became suspicious. "So why do you want to know?"

"Well . . ." I coughed in my hand. "You just said that you two werenтАЩt seeing each other on
company time . . . and really, I believe you, honest . . . but just for the sake of conjecture, if you
were seeing each other here at the lab, umm . . . would you be doing it where Samson might be
at the same time?"

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"B-b-buh-buh . . ." Phil stared at me as if I was his father and I had just asked if he knew how to
put on a condom. And then his eyes involuntarily traveled toward the window.

While we had been speaking, without either of us taking notice, Samson had automatically gone
into recharge mode. The robot had walked to the nearest electrical outlet, withdrawn a power
cable from his thorax, and inserted it into the wall socket. Since Samson now spent most of his
downtime in the training suite, he knew exactly where all the outlets were located.

It suddenly occurred to me that the outlets were all within line-of-sight of the suiteтАЩs bedroom.
The one which all of us had used when we were too tired or busy to go home.

And Samson, of course, knew how to change the sheets when asked to do so.

When I looked back at Phil, I saw that he was staring straight at me. Nothing further needed to
be said: he knew that I knew, and I knew that he knew that I knew. ThatтАЩs another thing about