"Jody Lynn Nye - Medecine Show" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

sent out from his world to study humanity, Chirwl acknowledged machinery as part of the curiosities of
the new race but regarded all those unnatural things with deep suspicion.
"What to do first?" he wondered. "Shall one hear the news from other places or see mail?"
"Oh, Chirwl, how can you ask?" Shona chided him play-fully, reaching for the icon for personal mail.
"It's been months!"
She suffered through a long, long pause while the net found the data posted to the new number. Shona's
copious correspon-dence had been the source of much pain for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation
agents trying to shield her. Anyone could trace her location from the beacons to which certain numbers
were delivered. In the end, the GBI set up several accommodation accounts that collected her mail,
splitting her trail into five to seven branches. These branches sent her messages on to other branches that
eventually dumped them into the main number she used now. Shona was never certain that some of her
messages weren't lost along the way.
The diversity of letters on the list, a veritable feast after social starvation, delighted her into a wordless
exclamation. Her best friend, Susan MacRoy, had sent every week. Aunt Laurel and Uncle Harry Elliott
popped up once in a while on the list. Shona was pleased to see her forgetful scientist friends on Erebus
had managed to hold onto the comm program she'd set up for them. Even though it was a weak link in
the security chain, she'd requested that the GBI not change their access number to her during their
periodic sweeps. Though each had multiple academic degrees, none of her dear friends on Erebus was
capable of probing the niceties of a simple Execute file. Create artificial life, perhaps; program a video
unit, no. Shona held her hands over the keyboard, enjoying herself for one moment more.
"What are you doing?" Lani asked. "Why not play them?"
"I'm just anticipating, honey," Shona said with a grin. "—That's long enough." Her fingers dove toward
the keys.
Susan's face appeared on the screen. "Hi, twin! You couldn't have picked a worse time to go
incommunicado. I would give anything to be able to talk with you right now. The tri-video is in the
middle of production, and everybody's driving me crazy asking for details of events that happened when
I wasn't there!" Susan rolled her large blue eyes skyward. "Wish you could be here to help me record
your life story. We've got the most gorgeous guy to play Gershom. I thought they were going to

file:///H|/eMule/Incoming/Jody%20Lynn%20Nye%20-%20Medicine%20Show(htm%20uc).html (21 of 210)15-8-2005 0:28:56
 Jody Lynn Nye - Medicine Show


computer-enhance his image to make him look more like the real thing, then the Legal Department said
that would be bad—make him a target for casual busybodies, you know. I mean, your pictures are in the
news-files. Anyone can look them up if they want, but who says that the whole galaxy needs to know?"
"That's for certain," Shona agreed. On the screen, Susan's image nodded violently as if she could hear
her friend's comment. Her long lashes dipped wickedly, inadequately disguising a twinkle. Shona
recognized it was a sign Susan was about to drop a bombshell. She waited.
"Anyhow, the big headline for the day is that Dree Solana is playing you! She merely signed today,
twin, so this is fresh-out-of-the-mold news."
Shona gasped with delight. Dree enjoyed a reputation as a serious character actress who won drama
award after drama award and could pick her parts as she chose. Anything starring Dree had automatic
viewership in the billions. Susan's career had "arrived" as the entertainment folk would say, if her first
mass production could attract a lead player of that magnitude.
"I am so thrilled, every time I think about it I hyperventi-late!" Susan continued. "I love working on a
project with actual funding. It means I don't have to subsist on nutri, which I hate, but not as much as
you do, I know."
"Oh, that's for certain," Shona said. She had a long-standing, if cordial, dislike of the food substitute.
The bland substance satisfied all nutritional requirements except for taste and texture.