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

Or the parents who bought us drove us to the woods and left us there—or they stopped feeding us and stuff like that.
So after a while there weren’t many of us left.
“’People started to believe the Atherton lady. They set up a bunch of houses for us and that’s how we got to live
here.
 “’We do all sorts of stuff the guys who made us didn’t think we could do, like think and feel and live longer than
three years. My buddy Preston writes books. My other buddy Diogenes reads all the stuff in the library. And the
Five Wise Buddhasaurs, who don’t say anything but they play this stuff that sounds like music sometimes. And
Agnes is this stegosaur with plates on her back and spikes on her tail and she knows all about humans and what’s
wrong with them. She’s twenty-five years old, so she must know everything. Doc is smart too, but he’s nice!
“’The guys who made us said we couldn’t make eggs because we don’t have the right parts and stuff, but we can
do that too! Not me, but like Bronte and Kara—female guys. The humans aren’t supposed to know, except for Tom
and Dr. Margaret—she’s the lady who comes every week to make sure we’re not sick or dead. I’m not supposed to
know either because they think I can’t keep a secret, so don’t tell the other space guys about this, okay?
“’And when I finish this message, I’m gonna build Rotomotoman. He’s this cool robot I dreamed about last
night. Reggie’s gonna help me, because Reggie’s the very-best-smartest whole computer in the world. Then I’m
gonna get on a starship and travel all through time and space and save the universe and crash into supernovas and
get sucked into wormholes.’”
Axel took a long, necessary breath, then said to Reggie, “Is that okay?”
“Under the circumstances,” Reggie said, “Your message is—exceptional.”
“Wow!”
“It is, however, customary to ask after the well-being of the recipient of the message, and to close the
message—“
“Oh, oh, I know! I know! So I’ll say, ‘Hope you’re okay. Your friend, Axel.’ Like that, right?”
“The message will be sent as you dictated it,” Reggie replied, “with a few grammatical corrections.”
“All Axel leapt up. “A message to space! Thank you, Reggie! Oh,
right!”
thank-you-thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!”
“You are very welcome, Axel,” said Reggie. Then, with what one might interpret as a trepidatious pause—and
with careful attention to pronunciation—he asked, “Now, please explain to Reggie, what is a Ro-to-mo-to-man?”
Tom Groverton stood at the door of the room where the saurs slept. Eyes half open, hair still mussed, a middle
button of his shirt undone, he said the word “breakfast” clearly but not too loudly and stepped back as the little ones
ran past him.
The bigger saurs rose slowly: grunting, grumbling and stretching. The triceratops named Charlie always had a
little trouble righting himself. He braced up against his mate, Rosie, until his hind legs were reasonably straight.
The two gray stegosaurs, Agnes and Sluggo, went through a ritual that resembled push-ups—hind legs first, then
forelegs up slowly with a sliding sort of motion.
Hubert and Diogenes, the two biggest theropods—each over a meter and a half tall—helped the other big guys,
like Sam and Dr. David Norman. Tails really do help.
Diogenes leant a forepaw to Doc, the light brown tyrannosaur with a “tricky” left leg.
“Thank you, my friend,” Doc said, his eyes barely visible under his thick lids. “Each day it seems to get a little
harder.”
“It does for everyone,” said Tom Groverton from the doorway.
Doc nodded. “But not quite the same way for everyone. You were a little one once, who grew into an adult. We
saurs were engineered. We were ‘born’ with our eyes open. What growth we experienced is beyond memory. The
little ones stay little and the big ones were always big.”
“Either way, we grow old,” Tom insisted.
“Until we grow cold.” Doc smiled serenely. “Or perhaps you can say we wear out instead.”
“So do we.”
As Hubert and Diogenes folded up the blankets and covers, Tom walked over to the wheeled, bassinet-sized
hospital bed in the center of the room. Upon it was a figure who was recognizably a saurian and recognizably a