"Zelazny, Roger - My Lady Of The Diodes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

“You built me to cover every contingency. Don’t worry. Just give me the information I ask for.”

“I’ll have to consider this one a little further, baby. So excuse me. I’m going to eat dinner.”

“Don’t drink too much. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Sure. See you later.”

I pushed Maxine under the bed and left, heading up the street toward the restaurant. It was a warm summer evening, and the slants of sunlight between buildings were filled with glowing dust motes.

“Mister Bracken, may I speak with you?”

I turned and regarded the speaker’s maple syrup eyes behind jar bottoms set in Harlequin frames, dropped my gaze approximately five feet two inches to the tops of her white sandals, and raised it again, slowly: Kind of flat chested and pug nosed, she wore a cottony candy-striped thing which showed that anyway her shoulders were not bony. Lots of maple syrup matching hair was balled up on the back of her head, with a couple winglike combs floating on it and aimed at her ears, both of which looked tasty enough—the ears, that is. She carried a large purse and a camera case almost as big.

“Hello. Yes. Speak.” There was something vaguely familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite place it.

“My name is Gilda Coburn,” she said, “and I arrived in town today.” Her voice was somewhat nasal. “I was sent to do a feature article on the computer conference. I was coming to see you.”

“Why?”

“To interview you, concerning data-processing techniques.”

“There’ll be a lot of more important men than me around in another week or so. Why don’t you talk to them. I’m not in computers anymore.”

“But I’ve heard that you’re responsible for three of the most important breakthroughs in the past decade. I read all of Daniel Bracken v. Seekfax Incorporated, and you said this yourself at the trial.”

“How did you know I was in Denver?”

“Perhaps some friend of yours told my editor. I don’t know how he found out. May I interview you?”

“Have you eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Come with me then. I’ll feed you and tell you about data processing.”

No friend of mine could have told any editor, because I don’t have any friends, except for Maxine. Could Gilda be some kind of cop? Private, local, insurance? If so, it was worth a meal or three if I could find out.

I ordered drinks before dinner, a bottle of wine with the meal and two after-dinner drinks, hoping to fog her a bit. But she belted everything down and remained clear as a bell.

And her questions remained cogent and innocuous, until I slipped up on one.

I referred to the Seekfax 410 translation unit when talking about possible ways of communicating with extraterrestrials, should we ever come across any.

“… 610,” she corrected, and I went on talking.

Click! Unwind her hair and lighten it a couple shades, then make her glasses horn-rimmed…

Sonia Kronstadt, girl genius out of MIT, designer of the Seekfax 5000, the prototype of which I was contemplating selling to the Bureau of Vital Statistics in Sao Paulo. She worked for the enemy.