"02 - Hot Sleep" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

Hot Sleep: The Worthing Chronicle
by Orson Scott Card
Version 1.0

1

JAS WORTHING was being kept alive by State Paper
FN3xxR5a, and he knew it. He didn't need an
assistant professor of education to tell him that.
But once Hartman Tork had begun a lecture, he
was unstoppable.

"There's no way, Jas Worthing, that you could
have made a perfect score on that test. The infor-
mation is classified, it was only bumped onto the
computers by a mistake in the program—"

"Your mistake," Jas pointed out.

"Maybe not a mistake at all," Tork said, his face
turning red with anger. "Maybe we've found out
something about you that we desperately wanted
to know. You couldn't possibly have copied off
anyone else's paper—"

"Are you accusing me of cheating? Because the
juvenile code requires a proper hearing and sub-
stantiating evidence—"

Tork whirled around on his swivel stool and
stood up. He walked around the glowing teacher-
board until he stood only a meter or less away
from Jas. Again, as a hundred times before, Jas felt
the vertigo of childhood, realizing that everything
is up, that only when he tumbled into the future
would he be as large as those who manipulated
him today—or tried to, anyway.

"I've had enough," Tork said, softly, trying to
be menacing; and though Jas knew that the
menace was a facade worn to intimidate the small
and weak, he also knew that behind the facade the
threat was very, very real. "I've had enough of
your cocky smartass self-assurance. Now you're
going to take that test over again."

And in spite of himself Jas was trembling,
though he kept the quaver out of his voice. "Un-
less you can prove malfeasance—"