"Mike Resnick - Tales Of The Galactic Midway - Alien-Tamer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

Post Office might be making deliveries out here, do you?”
“We have thirty-two aliens working for us, Thaddeus,” said Tojo. “Most of them
come from the Community of Worlds. I thought they might have some letters from
home.”
“Yeah? Well, if the mail service out here is anything like the cargo service, the letters
are probably somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy by now. There's probably a real
good reason why the Corporation hasn't gone bankrupt yet, but I sure as hell can't
come up with it.”
“We didn't get our Ferris wheel,” said Tojo. It was not a question.
“Among other things.” Flint raised his gaze to the heavens, shielding his eyes from
the glare of the binary star. “I wonder how things are going in Vermont. At least we
didn't have to readapt the rides every time we moved to a new town.” He took another
puff of his cigarette and coughed. “And a man could get a decent smoke.”
“You've been complaining about the cigarettes for two years, Thaddeus.”
“The ship's robots have been making lousy cigarettes for two years,” replied Flint.
“Next year I'll have been complaining for three years.”
“Thereis an alternative,” said Tojo softly.
“You tell me what it is again and you just may get whacked on the side of the head.”
Tojo sighed and remained silent.
“Did you see that goddamned tombstone?” said Flint at last, lighting up yet another
cigarette and coughing again.
“Yes,” replied the hunchback. “I thought it was a very touching gesture.”
“Monk hated the bear and the bear hated Monk. What's so touching about that?”
demanded Flint.
“I take it the tombstone wasn't your idea?”
“What do you think?” He paused. “Where the hellis Clyde Beatty, anyway?”
“His new animals have been unloaded,” said Tojo. “I imagine he's with them.”
“Oh, well,” said Flint with a shrug. “I saw the robots making up a keg of beer this
morning. I suppose I ought to let it age another half hour, just to be civilized about it.
Let's go on over and see what he's picked out this time.”
They walked down the Midway, past the Skillo games and the Fascination booths and
the Three-Card Monte tables and the Bozo cage, past the Wax Museum and the
concession stands, past the specialty tent where Billybuck Dancer put on his Wild
West Show Three Times Nightly, past the makeshift wrestling ring where the carnival
offered 50-Credits-50 to anyone who could stay five minutes with Julius Squeezer,
their green-skinned and slightly reptilian muscleman from far Antares. They went out
to the little circle of trailers and vehicles that were perhaps two hundred yards beyond
the various rides, and finally they came to a training cage, some fifty feet in diameter,
around which a number of the carny workers had gathered.
Standing by the door was Jupiter Monk, sweat pouring down from his thinning hair,
his huge handlebar mustache drooping in the heat. The burly animal trainer was
dressed all in khaki, and was absently fingering a small “popper” whip, designed
more to startle than to harm.
Standing directly opposite Monk, on the far side of the cage, was a slender blond man
dressed in denim pants and jacket and wearing a felt Stetson. He stood so motionless
that Flint didn't see him at first, and when at last he did he walked over to him.
“Riding shotgun?” asked Flint.
“Yep,” replied Billybuck Dancer.
“Do me a favor. If there's any trouble and you have to use that thing"—Flint gestured
toward the pistol that the Dancer had tucked in his holster—"shoot Monk.”