"Nebula Awards 2002 - The Nominated Stories" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nebula Awards)

The sun is coming! And the sun is a star! And it’s spinning through space! And we’re spinning through space
around the sun! And—there’s stuff to do!
“Stuff to do!” he whispered, hopped back to the stool and then to the floor.
Axel looked back at the sleep-pile. It was a great, blanket-covered mound. Except for the breathing, a few
grumbled syllables and occasional twitches, none of the other saurs stirred. They were good sleepers for the most
part—all but Axel. Axel could run about all day long from one end of the old Victorian house to the other, and when
sleep time came and the saurs gathered themselves into a pile, he would shut his eyes—but nothing happened. His
mind kept running. Even when he did manage to drift off, his dreams were of running, of traveling in speeding
vehicles, like interstellar cruisers. And even if he wasn’t moving, he dreamed of motion, of stars and planets and
asteroids, of winds and birds and leaves in autumn. The whole universe was whirling and spinning like an
enormous amusement park ride.
He’d been to an amusement park once, so long ago he couldn’t distinguish it anymore from the rest of life.
He had no need to creep out of the room. The thump-thump-thump of his big padded feet disturbed no one. His
tail in the air didn’t make a sound. He ran past the room of the big human, Tom Groverton. The human ran and ran
all day long too, cleaning and feeding and keeping the saurs out of trouble—but he got tired and slept almost as
hard as the saurs.
Axel headed down to the first floor. Descending human stairs should have been difficult for a bipedal creature
only forty centimeters tall, but he flew down them with ease. There were so many things to do today! The universe
was so big—that is, sooooo big! How could anyone just lie about when the sky was already lighting up the world?
No way! Axel thumped the floor with his tail. Space and Time and Time and Space! The Universe is one big place!

He’d learned that from the computer.
The computer was on a desk in the dining room, or what had been the dining room when the house was just a
place for humans, before it became a shelter for the saurs. The desk sat over by the east-facing window. The
computer was old in many respects, but the old computers were often more easily upgraded, and as long as they
were linked to all the marvelous systems out there in the world past the porch and the yard, there was nothing this
old model couldn’t do.
“Yeah!”
Axel rolled a set of plastic steps up to the desk and dashed straight up until he stood before the huge gray
monitor—huge to Axel, at least.
“Hey! Reggie!” Axel addressed the computer by name.
The computer could be voice-activated and voice-actuated. The brain box chirped at Axel’s greeting and the
screen came to life. Icons were displayed in the corners and along the top, one of them being the Reggiesystems
icon: “Reggie” himself, the light green seahorse-or-baby-sea-serpent thing, with its round black eyes and orange
wattle that drooped down his jaw like a handlebar mustache.
The icon dropped to the center of the screen and grew until it was almost half the height of the screen. The figure
of Reggie rotated from profile to head-on and in a smooth, slightly androgynous voice he spoke:
“Reggie is ready.”
“Hiya!” Axel waved a forepaw and smiled, mouth opened wide, revealing all his tiny, thorn-like teeth.
“Good morning, Axel” said Reggie. “What can Reggie do for you today?” Reggie always referred to himself in
the third person.
“A whole bunch of stuff!” Axel stretched his forepaws far apart. “Important stuff! Fate of the universe stuff!
Really truly big important stuff!” His head bobbed with each exclamation.
“Where would you like to begin?” Reggie said with patience.
Axel looked sharply to one side, then the other. “Don’t know! I forgot. Wait!” He nodded vigorously. “The
screensaver! Show me the screensaver!”
The icon’s head seemed to jiggle slightly, affirmatively, as if acknowledging the request. Reggie disappeared and
the screen darkened to black. Axel drew his paws together in anticipation.
A bright speck appeared in the center of the darkness. It grew until it flickered gently, like a star, then grew
some more until it looked as big as the sun.