"Goulart, Ron - Barnum System - Jack Summer 04 - Galaxy Jane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

“Bloody wretch!”

One of them leaped, tackling Summer just below the knees, causing him to fall over backward. He landed on the plaz mosaic tiles with a slick thump.

A second Scoundrel Trackers robot jumped and sat, hard, on Summer’s chest. “Now give a listen to this, mate.” Music started pouring out of a tiny speaker in his left side. Sweet, romantic music thick with violins.

“So?” Summer got an armlock on the squatting robot and tried to unseat him.

“Ain’t ‘e the ‘eartless one?” observed the third robot, who’d opened a compartment in his shiny chest to reveal a small wafer-thin vidscreen.

“This here’s your song,” said the one on Summer’s chest. “The very tune you and your dear wife loved to play of an evening whilst gathered round the bloomin’ ‘armonium in—”

“You gents do sloppy research,” Summer pointed out while trying to wrestle free of the two mechanical men. “Maryella and I never owned a harmonium. Furthermore, that dippy tune is actually the theme from an old Galactic Skymines commercial that aired here in the Barnum System of planets nearly five long—”

“An’ I suppose, you cruel deserter,” inquired the third robot, tapping his picture screen, “that this hain’t that selfsame Maryella workin’ as a-galley drudge in a cafeteria what’s orbitin’ the worst bloomin’ planet out in the Hellquad at this—”

“Nope, it isn’t,” said Summer after a quick glance at the flickering image. “Maryella’s slim and blond, thirty-one her last birthday. That lady’s got to be over fifty and she’s fat as well, and—”

“Well, the poor lass ‘as gone to seed since you run off to pursue your dubious career as a muckrakin’ videojournalist, guy.”

“I didn’t run off. Maryella and I are legally divorced.” He managed to toss the robot from off his chest, sending it smack into the one who was showing him the heartrending pictures of a woman who wasn’t his former wife at all. Both of the ‘bots went rolling and sliding, wobbling and rattling, away from him.

That left only the third mechanical bill collector, who had both springy metal arms locked around Summer’s legs.

“I suppose,” asked this one now in his tinny, piping voice, “you’re goin’ to claim you don’t owe the poor slatternly wench four bloody months of back alimony?”

“That was just an error on the part of my bank. While I was out on the planet—”

“Can the tripe, guy. All you deadbeats try to pull that

“Awk! Awk!”

Summer thrust a hand into the mechanical man’s right armpit, locating the emergency turnoff switch. Few knew of the switch, but Summer’d done considerable research on bizbots once, for a seven-minute vidwall essay that never aired.

Jumping to his feet and clear of the disabled ‘bot, he went sprinting for the NewzNet gates.

The other two Scoundrel Trackers, Ltd. mechanical men were still struggling to return to upright positions.

* * * *

The large toadman paused to fluff his curly golden locks, then continued, “What you don’t seem to understand, young man, is that this—”

“I’m not young,” corrected Summer, who was seated across the shuttle aisle from the toad in the conservative two-piece bizsuit.

“Be that as it may, this is, as is plainly spelled out on the cabin door, in not one but seventeen major languages and a rebus, this is an Executive Shuttle to the NewzNet satellite headquarters.”

“Yep, that’s exactly where I want to go.” Nodding, Summer settled back in his plush seat.

The shuttle was climbing silently up toward Studio One, his intended destination.