"Donald Westlake - SH4 - The World's A Stage" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

“In terrible trouble,” the agent finished. To his secretary-who had stopped note taking, the better to look
shocked and horrified-he said, “Erase that bit, Emily, and don’t breath a word of this to anyone.”

“Oh, sir,” breathed Emily, with all the despairing fervor of any showbiz secretary ordered not to gossip,

The captain said, “Really, uh, your Honor, I’m sure we can arrange all the transportation you need.”

“I’m delighted and relieved to hear it,” the agent said. “Five at the very most.”

The captain said, “All we need is to get to the ship and---”

“Impossible,” the agent said.

“I knew there had to be a kicker,” Ensign Benson said. “What is it?”

The agent pressed all his fingers to his chest in the time-honored agent’s gesture of innocence. “Bubee,”
he said, “do I know where your ship is? No. Certain members of the rep company do, If you go to the
rep company and tell them you’re here in a spaceship, after five hundred years but you’re not their
transportation, do you know what they’ll do?”

The Earth party shook its heads.

“Lynch you,” said Emily bitterly. She was shredding her pencil.

“Very probably,” said the agent.

Ensign Benson said, “Do you mean we can’t get our space ship back because, if people know it’s real
but not your damned tour bus, they’ll blame us?”

“I couldn’t have phrased it better myself,” the agent said. “Remember, five hundred years is a long
rehearsal.”

Emily, sniffing solemnly over her note pad, murmured, “But what else could we have done? We never
knew when….”

“Yes, Emily,” the agent said sympathetically.

Councilman Luthguster said, “But this is terrible; I can’t arrange for transportation or trade agreements or
development aid or anything until I’m back on the ship.”

“But how to get there,” Pam said. “That’s the problem.”

All nodded dolefully. But then Billy leaped to his feet, his fresh face eager and alight. “Say, gang!” he
cried. “Why don’t we-I dunno-put on a show?”
And what a show! Dorothy and the Wizard of J. Railsforth Farnsworth Repertory Company, and
Selected Shorts. The agent helped arrange for cooperation from the craft guilds, and the sounds of
cheerful hammering and more cheerful whistling rose up from the stage carpenters building the sets.
Backdrops were flown, specialty acts were auditioned and Ensign Benson took to wearing jodhpurs and
an ascot. Councilman Luthguster sang the base notes, Billy gave pep talks from the tops of ladders and
the captain flew squadrons of stuffed birds. The crew spent hours in the wardrobe shed, sequences from