"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 03 - Woodsman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

Freddy's wife was as crippled, and as intelligent, as he. "You and your
wishes," she said now. "They're about as useless as, as these." She waved her
several legs in the air. There were more than four of them, all hollow tubes
through which she could channel her breath. She was a living bagpipe.

Tom's wife, Muffy, reached out a hand to stroke Porculata's tartan hide.
"We're working on it," she said. In the crook of her other arm nestled Randy,
the giant spider that at one time, when she had been an exotic dancer, had
been her trademark prop. Behind her was a broad easel with a display of
clippings about Freddy and Porculata and the musical performances that had
made them both famous.

A dignified sniff drew Tom's and Muffy's eyes toward a gentleman whose
silvery grey coverall matched his swept-back hair. When he saw that he had
their attention, he said, "A pig's a pig, and they'll stay that way. If God
had intended..."

"God!" Freddy snorted.

"But BRA..." said Kimmer Peirce. Young and blonde, she stood beside her
husband, Franklin, the balding curator of the art museum where the musical
genimals lived. He was holding Porculata in his arms.

At the interruptions, the sniffer muttered, "Animals!" and turned away. An
older woman, her hair not quite as grey as his, made a face at his back. "The
Bioform Regulatory Administration is dominated by the conservatives," she
said. Her dress coverall bore the emblem of the Endangered Species Replacement
Program. "They don't mind using gene replacement to turn people into animals.
And we could go the other way, easy. The technology's just the same. But no,
that's..."

"We'll persuade them, Calla," said Muffy. Calla Laffiter was the director
of the local office of the ESRP. "And then you can..."

A gentle chime rang through the hall. "That's our cue," said Freddy. "Come
on, let's go!" As the crowd drifted toward the folding seats arrayed across
the building's floor, leaving the remaining canapes and punch to Martha,
Franklin Peirce and Tom Cross carried their burdens toward the stage. To one
side, a brass quintet was arranging sheet music on stands. In the center of
the stage, illuminated by a single spotlight, gleamed a pair of chrome-plated
support racks for the genimals. Behind them, the building's wall glowed pink
from the fading sunset.

The sound of motorcycle engines penetrated the building's walls a moment
before the quintet began to play, but no one seemed to notice or to wonder
what such antique vehicles should be doing in the pedestrian precincts of the
zoo. They were too intent on the stirring brassiness of trumpets and
trombones, the throaty wailing of Porculata's bagpiping, and the sheer
virtuosity of Freddy's scat-singing, which brought it all together. The