"Ron Goulart - The Robot In The Closet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goulart Ron)

thick with respectable folk."
"How about Captain Firebrand Tenbrook? Did she tell you that mayhap the lad got his colorful
nickname because he held charitable wienie roasts for seventeenth-century Caribbean tots?"
"He was noted for—"
The door chimes sounded.
Tim spun to face the one-way see-through front door. "Oy, it's Sara's awful uncle."
"How come this one isn't upright and God-fearing?"
"You can be upright and God-fearing and still be an asshole."
"True," the robot acknowledged as he crossed his legs with a clang.
Out in the early morn stood a small silvery-haired old man. He was wrapped in a poncho made
of real seal fur. Over his eyes was a thick strip of black glaz and in his gloved hand he held a silver-
tipped rod. Next to Sara's legally blind old uncle stood a large burly man with three ears.
"Brought his nitwit lawyers, too."
"Lawyers, plural?" Roscoe raised a wiry eyebrow.
"Yeah. That's Dibner, Keese and Mermillion. Used to be three separate assholes until they got
blended together as a result of a freak teleport pad accident last year." He gazed, forlornly, at the
two visitors waiting outside. "Dibner and Keese and Mermillion jointly boarded a pad in Manhattan
State, set the dial for sun-filled Acapulco and flipped the go switch. Their individual atoms got
jumbled somehow and on the Mexico end only one composite guy emerged. Got a brilliant mind,
made up of the best parts of three. They sued the hell out of ITT and won, but there was no way to
unscramble them."
"I sense you're in there, Timothy," called O.O. Tenbrook in his high piping voice. He began
whapping his sightrod at the door.
"Best usher the old boy in before he breaks his cane," advised Roscoe. "Some blind men are
very amiable. Homer, for example, and Blind Lemon Jefferson are both sweethearts. Milton, on the
other hand, is pretty much of a shit."
"Coming, Uncle Oscar." Tim activated the opening mex.
"Colder than a witch's kiss." The old man came lurching into the pod.
"In here, too," said Tim, "so I hear."
The tip of the rod swung up to inspect Tim's face. "Don't like your new moustache, my boy,"
said O.O. Tenbrook.
"I don't have a moustache, Uncle Oscar," Tim told him. "Must be a new crack in your lens. You
ought to go easier on whacking things with your sightrod."
"We gave you similar advice," said Dibner, Keese and Mermillion as he crossed the threshold.
"When you bopped that Salvation Army band, sir."
"Selling Xmas cards in mid-January, they deserved a thrashing."
The composite attorney's voice changed to a deep baritone. "I fear they now have grounds for a
whopping suit against you, O.O. When you bent that fellow's electric trombone over his . . ." The
voice all at once shifted to tenor. ". . . we'll bail you out of this scrape, O.O. All we do is slip the
head office of the SA, say, fifty thou to . . . Damn it, Irv, won't you ever get bribes off your mind?"
"All three of you hush up in there," the old man ordered his attorney. He absently stroked the
plazcord leading from the handle of his sightrod to his eyeband. "I don't suppose Sara is up yet. Girl
always was lazy."
"It's barely six am, Uncle Osc—"
"Good thing she isn't. Counted on finding you alone so we can have a man-to-man talk,
Timothy."
"This isn't really a legal problem," said Dibner, Keese and Mermillion in his deepest voice.
"What say we slip into the kitchen pod while you gab and rustle up some grub? Boy, some
scrambled eggsubs would really hit the old . . . Cmon, Leroy, you promised to cut down on the
calories. We're already seven pounds overweight . . . How can we be overweight? Consider, if you