"Mike Resnick - Encounters" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

wagon?” I demanded.
“I thought you were dead,” said Ivor.
“The Baron pays you to go around tidying up the cemetery, does he?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” said Ivor. “He sent me here to bring him back a better brain.”
“He ain't pleased with the one he's got?”
Ivor sighed. “It's all very complicated, Doctor Jones.”
“Yeah, it sounds a mite complicated,” I allowed. “I mean, a lot of folks wish they were a little
smarter, but this Baron of yours is the first one I ever heard tell of who's actually trying to do
something about it.”
“You don't understand, Doctor Jones,” said Ivor. “He doesn't want the brain for himself.”
“He's stealing it for a friend?”
Ivor shook his head. “It's for his work. He has long sought to create a living man. For years he
has labored to reanimate dead tissue, putting together spare body parts in the laboratory he
has built in the basement of his castle.”
“Seems to me that the standard way of creating new men is cheaper and easier, not to say
more fun,” I said.
“He is a brilliant man,” said Ivor. “A great scientist. He is on the verge of a major
breakthrough.”
It sounded to me like anyone who wanted to build a man in his basement was more on the
verge of a major breakdown, but I just smiled and nodded sagely.
“After more than a decade of trial and error, of experiment after experiment, he had reached
the final stage of his work,” continued Ivor. “All he needs now is the proper brain.”
“And he wanted mine?” I said. “Well, I'm flattered, Brother Ivor, but if it's all the same to you, I
ain't done using it myself yet.”
“I didn't know you were alive, Doctor Jones,” said Ivor apologetically. “I heard that a major
bookseller had died yesterday, and I thought: what a wonderful present that would make for
my master—a brain that had spent its entire life immersed in literature. It's his birthday, and
the brain would be such a nice surprise for him.”
“Well, it seems to me that if you just stick around long enough, Brother Ivor, they'll bring this
here bookman to the cemetery and plant him, and then all you got to do is mark the spot and
dig him up at your leisure.”
“It's not that easy,” he said. “They have already arrested me twice for grave-robbing. I can
only sneak in here at nights, and by then the day's corpses have already been buried.”
At which point my Silent Partner, who had returned from sabbatical, smote me right betwixt
the eyes with another of His great big heavenly revelations.
“That ain't no problem at all, Brother Ivor,” I said.
“It isn't?” he asked.
“For a small retainer, I'd be happy to hang around here til they brung this guy in, and mark the
spot where they bury him.”
“Oh, the Baron will be so happy!” said Ivor, clapping his little hands together.
“And for a further consideration, I'll give you a hand digging him up and delivering him to your
boss.”
“You have no moral compunctions about digging in hallowed ground?” he asked.
“Who better to dig in it than a man of the cloth?” I said.
“It's a deal, Doctor Jones!” he said excitedly. “I will return every night at midnight until they
have brought him here and buried him.”
“Sounds good to me, Brother Ivor,” I said as he took his leave of me, and a couple of minutes
later I was sound asleep again.
When I woke up in the morning I took a little stroll around the cemetery and found an apple
orchard at the far end of it, which took care of my meals for the rest of the day. I spent the