"Robin Wilson - To the Vector Belong..." - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilson Robin)

maybe because ofтАФ JakeтАЩs employment. At least no kids to put into the equation
now; Ellen grown and gone, and Tom . . . .

тАЬWhat do you have in mind?тАЭ she asks.

тАЬI donтАЩt know. Something. Well, you know, with or without a pension,
retirement looms. We gotta make some changes anyway . . . .тАЭ Lindstrom is trying to
convince himself as much as Jan.

тАЬSure, babe. IтАЩm with you.тАЭ

тАЬPack up the old kit?тАЭ

тАЬFirst thing tomorrow.тАЭ

They subside in a slow drowse into sleep. He does not worry Jan about the
Chew with government plates parked down the street, and she sleeps with an arm
across his chest. But sleep continues to evade him because no plan he can formulate
тАФ at one A.M. anyway тАФ seems feasible, and then his sense of the ridiculous kicks
in and he dozes off comforted by the thought that he will probably once again be
able, somehow, to improvise when the situation is right, and then he dreams of
himself, pensionless and penniless, playing a concertina at the Powell Street cable
car turntable, Al, chained, scampering among the tourists with a tin cup.


THE TEAM leader in the white lab coat at the ET-EF briefing is named Estelle
Lemos. A physician and research geneticist, she has assigned herself to collect the
more extensive secondary samples for the biochemical workup on the alien, and she
has asked to accompany Lindstrom on Friday as he transports Al from Turk Street
to the Vacaville Medical Facility. Her lab coat replaced by a belted red silk raincoat,
she is quite pretty sitting on the passenger side of his motorpool тАШ01 Plymouth with
the custodial rear seat as he drives up the Peninsula on the Bayshore Freeway from
Palo Alto. Lindstrom is surprised at her good looks. She had seemed thin lipped and
hard, older somehow, at the ET-EF session.

тАЬI appreciate your letting me ride along like this,тАЭ she says. тАЬI really want a
good look at our specimen.тАЭ

тАЬSpecimen?тАЭ Lindstrom is put off by the word.

Lemos notes this. тАЬSorry. ThatтАЩs the biochemist talking. LetтАЩs face it, most of
us in the test tube and genome-mapping racket come to think of people as a sort of a
pipe with sphincters at either end and a lot of auxiliary systems designed to fill it up
and empty it at regular intervals. Occupational hazard.тАЭ
 Lindstrom nods as he takes the off ramp onto 7th. тАЬAnd Al is a new kind of
pipe?тАЭ

тАЬSure. And frankly one we can examine a little more thoroughly than, well,
usually.тАЭ