The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s. Brian Aldiss

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ well, Mr Gavotte. And your roman here is ready to start conversions straight away? He can begin on Hippocrates now, if you wish.’

      ‘Certainly, certainly! Delighted.’ Gavotte beckoned to the new and gleaming machine behind him. ‘This by the way is the latest model from one of our associates, Anglo-Atomic. It’s the “Fleetfeet,” with streamlined angles and heinleined joints. We’ve just had an order for a dozen – this is confidential, by the way, but I don’t suppose it’ll matter if I tell you, Mr Birdlip – we’ve just had an order for a dozen from Buckingham Palace. Can I send you one on trial?’

      ‘I’m fully staffed, thank you. Now if you’d like to start work … I have another appointment at seventeen-fifty.’

      ‘Fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two. Fifty-two! What stamina he has!’ exclaimed the RSPCR captain, Warren Pavment, to his assistant.

      ‘He has finished now,’ said the assistant, a 71 AEI model called Toggle. ‘Do you detect a look of content on his face, Captain?’

      Hovering in a copter over the Central area, man and roman peered into the tiny screen by their knees. On the screen, clearly depicted by their spycast, a tiny Freddie Freud collapsed into a chair, rested on his laurels, and gave a tiny Bucket the whip to return to the cupboard.

      ‘You can stop squealing now,’ his tiny voice rang coldly in the cockpit.

      ‘I don’t thing he looks content,’ the RSPCR captain said. ‘I think he looks unhappy – guilty even.’

      ‘Guilty is bad,’ Toggle said, as his superior spun the magnification. Freud’s face gradually expanded, blotting out his body, filling the whole screen. Perspiration stood on his cheeks and forehead, each drop surrounded by its aura on the spycast.

      ‘I’ll bet that hurt me more than it did you,’ he panted. ‘You wrought-iron wretches, you never suffer enough.’

      In the copter, roman and human looked at each other in concern.

      ‘You heard that? He’s in trouble. Let’s go down and pick him up,’ said the Captain of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots.

      Cutting the cast, he sent his craft spinning down through a column of warm air.

      Hot air ascended from Mr Gavotte. Running a sly finger between collar and neck, he was saying, ‘I’m a firm believer in culture myself, Mr Birdlip. Not that I get much time for reading –’

      A knock at the door and Hippo came in. Going to him with relief, Birdlip said, ‘Well, what’s the matter with the air-conditioning?’

      ‘The heating circuits are on, sir. They have come on in error, three months ahead of time.’

      ‘Did you speak to them?’

      ‘I spoke to them, sir, but their auditory circuits are malfunctioning.’

      ‘Really, Hippo! Why is nobody doing anything about this?’

      ‘Cogswell is down there, sir. But as you know he is rather an unreliable model and the heat in the control room has deactivated him.’

      Birdlip said reflectively, ‘Alas, the ills that steel is heir to. All right, Hippo, you stay here and let Mr Gavotte and his assistant install your homing device before they do the rest of the staff. I’ll go and see Mr Freud. He’s always good with the heating system; perhaps he can do something effective. As it is, we’re slowly cooking.’

      Gavotte and Fleetfeet closed in on Hippo.

      ‘Open your mouth, old fellow,’ Gavotte ordered. When Hippo complied, Gavotte took hold of his lower jaw and pressed it down hard, until with a click it detached itself together with Hippo’s throat. Fleetfeet laid jaw and throat on the desk while Gavotte unscrewed Hippo’s dust filters and air cooler and removed his windpipe. As he lifted off the chest inspection cover, he said cheerfully, ‘Fortunately this is only a minor operation. Give me my drill, Fleetfeet.’ Waiting for it, he gazed at Hippo and picked his nose with considerable scientific detachment.

      Not wishing to see any more, Birdlip left his office and headed for his partner’s room.

      As he hurried down the corridor, he was stopped by a stranger. Uniform, in these days of individualism, was a thing of the past; nevertheless, the stranger wore something approaching a uniform: a hat reproducing a swashbuckling Eighteenth Century design, a plastic plume: a Nineteenth or Twentieth Century tunic that, with its multiplicity of pockets, gave its wearer the appearance of a perambulating chest of drawers: Twenty-First Century skirt-trousers with mobled borsts; and boots hand painted with a contemporary tartan paint.

      Covering his surprise with a parade of convention, Birdlip said, ‘Warm today, isn’t it?’

      ‘Perhaps you can help me. My name’s Captain Pavment, Captain Warren Pavment. The doorbot sent me up here, but I have lost my way.’

      As he spoke, the captain pulled forth a gleaming metal badge. At once a voice by their side murmured conspiratorially, ‘… kish annexation of the Suezzeus Canal on Mars …’ dying gradually as the badge was put away again.

      ‘RSPCR? Delighted to help you, Captain. Who or what are you looking for?’

      ‘I wish to interview a certain Frederick Freud, employed in this building,’ said Pavment, becoming suddenly official now that the sight of his own badge had reassured him. ‘Could you kindly inform me whereabouts his whereabouts is?’

      ‘Certainly. I’m going to see Mr Freud myself. Pray follow me. Nothing serious, I hope, Captain?’

      ‘Let us say nothing that should not yield to questioning.’

      As he led the way, Birdlip said, ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself. I am January Birdlip, senior partner of this firm. I shall be very glad to do anything I can to help.’

      ‘Perhaps you’d better join our little discussion, Mr Birdlip, since the – irregularities have taken place on your premises.’

      They knocked and entered Freud’s room.

      Freud stood looking over a small section of city. London was quieter than it had been since before Tactitus’ ‘uncouth warriors’ had run to meet the Roman invaders landing there twenty-two centuries ago. Dwindling population had emptied its avenues; the extinction of legislators, financiers, tycoons, speculators, and planners had left acres of it desolate but intact, decaying but not destroyed, stranded like a ship without cars yet not without awe upon the strand of history.

      Freud turned around and said, ‘It’s hot, isn’t it? I think I’m going home, Jan.’

      ‘Before you go, Freddie, this gentleman here is Captain Pavment of the RSPCR.’

      ‘He will be after I’ve left, too, won’t he?’ Freud asked in mock puzzlement.

      ‘I’ve come on a certain matter, sir,’ Pavment said, firmly but respectfully. ‘I think it might be better if your roman here left the room.’

      Making a small gesture of defeat, Freud sat down on the edge of his desk and said, ‘Bucket, get out of the room.’

      ‘Yessir.’ Bucket left.

СКАЧАТЬ