"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 02 - Greenhouse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

She was usually silent, except when she was hungry or curious about some
novel rustle in the vines outside the window. Tom bent and picked her up. She
was quivering like a plucked string. "Hurting, are you?" The useless leg was
crushed, as if someone had tried to kick the genimal out of the way, or to
step on her. He petted her stiff and wiry fur, picked from it the kitties that
had been under the couch, talked to her, tried to soothe her. In a few
minutes, Randy bent in his hands, trying to reach the base of the broken limb
with her mouth.

"I wish you could tell me what happened," he said as she chewed. The leg
came free and fell to the floor. He wondered whether it would grow back when
she molted again. "You won't be much good to her with only seven legs, will
you?" Randy was both Muffy's pet and the prop she used in her dancing. Her
fan, her feather boa, her bubbles. That had impressed him once, when he had
just run away from home, when he and Freddy had wanted to be singers together.

He had already lost his father. He had found out that his mother's husband
had not sired him. That had been a neighbor, a man who had moved away from the
neighborhood before ever he had been born. Then, by running away, he had
forfeited his mother, and he had never tried to return home. Now Muffy was
gone. It felt like a retribution of the fates.

Even Freddy had moved on, and Tom hadn't been able to sing alone. He had
worked in the Web's kitchen for awhile. Then he had found his present job, and
this apartment, and Muffy had moved in with him. And now...

His eyes watered. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Why? Why?
 Had the Engineers, those perfervid reactionaries, taken offense at her
dancing? At Randy? Had they taken offense at him and his job at the Garden?
Was she gone forever? Or would the phone ring and some strange voice demand
that he quit his job or burn the Garden or poison the stock? And then, only
then, would they release her. They did such things. They had learned well the
lessons of a century of terrorism.

He stepped across the room. The phone hung on the wall near the kitchen
door. The cord was intact. He took it off its hook and held it to his ear. The
dial tone was there, normal, undamaged. He hung up again, and he stared at the
phone, willing it to ring, willing it to tell him what was going on. He even
willed it to know what was going on, but the "message waiting" light remained
stubbornly dark.

He knew he was being silly. If they were going to call, they would wait.
They would want his nerves as much on edge as possible. They would want him to
be grateful for the call, so that he would do what they wanted.

And there was no way that Muffy had done it all herself. She wasn't
emotionally violent. She never had been, and honey suckers never were. The
honey made them quiet, passive, content to do no more than sit and suck more
honey. Muffy wasn't as far gone as most, for she retained the energy to dance.
But the tendencies were there. They had been there, perhaps, even before she