"Michael Swanwick - Shezro with Tyrannosaur" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

"тАФguilty of a Class Six violationтАФ

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 "Shezro with Tyrannosaur" by Michael Swanwick




"тАФbroke my fucking arm, man. He threw me to the ground!"

"тАФwork to do. Get them out of my kitchen!"

It turned out to be a simple case of note-passing. One of the waiters had, in his old age, conspired with another
recruited from a later period to slip a list of hot investments to his younger self. Enough to make them both
multibillionaires. We had surveillance devices planted in the kitchen, and a TSO saw the paper change hands.
Now the perps were denying everything.

It wouldnтАЩt have worked anyway. The authorities keep strict tabs on the historical record. Wealth on the order of
what they had planned would have stuck out like a sore thumb.

I fired both waiters, called the police to take them away, routed a call for two replacements several hours into
the local past, and had them briefed and on duty without any lapse in service. Then I took the TSO aside and
bawled him out good for calling me back real-time, instead of sending a memo back to me three days ago.
Once something has happened, though, thatтАЩs it. IтАЩd been called, so I had to handle it in person.

It was your standard security glitch. No big deal.

But it was wearying. So when I went back down the funnel to Hilltop Station, I set the time for a couple hours
after I had left. I arrived just as the tables were being cleared for desert and coffee.

Somebody handed me a microphone, and I tapped it twice, for attention. I was standing before the window, a
spectacular sunset to my back.

"Ladies and gentlemen," I said, "let me again welcome you to the late Cretaceous. This is the final research
station before the Age of Mammals. DonтАЩt worry, thoughтАФthe meteor that put a final end to the dinosaurs is still
several thousand years in the future!" I paused for laughter, then continued.

"If youтАЩll look outside, youтАЩll see Jean, our dino wrangler, setting up a scent lure. Jean, wave for our diners."

Jean was fiddling with a short tripod. She waved cheerily, then bent back to work. With her blond ponytail and
khaki shorts, she looked to be just your basic science babe. But Jean was slated to become one of the top
saurian behaviorists in the world, and knew it too. Despite our best efforts, gossip slips through.

Now Jean backed up toward the station doors, unreeling fuse wire as she went. The windows were all on the
second floor. The doors, on the ground floor, were all armored.

"Jean will be ducking inside for this demonstration," I said. "You wouldnтАЩt want to be outside unprotected when
the lure goes off."

"WhatтАЩs in it?" somebody called out.