"Steve Perry - The Man Who Never Missed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Perry Steven)

indexed, annotated and illustrated. Come and see."

Pen dropped the vacuum-formed steel ball into a circular slot on the
computer's terminal and stroked the unit to life. The operating system
acknowledged the format of the sphere with a wash of colors and words across
the holoprqj image above the keyboard, then went into mode-select.

"Verbal," Pen said, "standard Interstitchi, float it."

"Acknowledged," the computer said. It had a deep, feminine voice.

"Index-categories, primo screen-give me this one visual."

"Running."

Two seconds after the computer spoke, four words splashed into the air over
the unit. Khadaji blinked and stared at the projection. The words were:

LIQUIDS, SOLIDS, GASES, RADIANTS

Pen turned to Khadaji. "Pick a category," he said.

Might as well keep it simple, Khadaji thought. "Liquids," he said.

Pen turned back to the computer. "Liquids-give me the total number, please,
verbal will do."

"Nineteen thousand three hundred sixty-nine," the computer said.

Khadaji raised his eyebrows. "Buddha! You've made that many different kinds of
drinks?"

"So it seems."

"You can't remember them all."

"I probably could, but there wouldn't be much point to it. That's why I have
the sphere. Usually, it's enough to learn the ten or twenty most popular ones
in any given pub to get by-you can call up anything else if you need it."

Khadaji shook his head again, something he seemed to be doing a lot lately. "I
wouldn't have believed there could be that many different kinds of drinks."

Pen chuckled. "People or mues will drink almost anything. Some very strange
stuff." He said to the computer, "Liquids-Shin's Kiss, give the ingredient
list, visual."

"Running."

Two seconds later, the holoproj lit up with: