"Dick,_Philip_K._The Man Who Japed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

Quakily, in a spasm of agonized back-pedalling, Luddy muttered: "It's not a moral question, Al. It's a question of clarity. The Morec of that packet doesn't come across." His voice had a ragged, guilty edge; Luddy knew what he was doing and he was ashamed. "I-see Mrs. Frost's point. Yes I do. It looks as if we're scuttling the agricultural program, and naturally we don't mean that. Isn't that so, Al?"
"You're fired," Allen said.
They both stared at him. Neither of them grasped that he was serious, that he had really done it.
"Go tell Doris to make out your check." Allen took the packet from the desk and held onto it. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Frost, but I'm the only person qualified to speak for the Agency. We'll credit you for this packet and submit another. All right?"
She stubbed out her cigarette, rising, at the same time, to her feet. "It's your decision."
"Thanks," he said, and felt a release of tension. Mrs. Frost understood his stand, and approved. And that was crucial.
"I'm sorry," Luddy muttered, ashen. "That was a mistake on my part. The packet is fine. Perfectly sound as it now exists." Plucking at Allen's sleeve, he drew him off in the corner. "I admit I made a mistake." His voice sank to a jumpy whisper. "Let's discuss this further. I was simply trying to develop one possible viewpoint among many. You want me to express myself; I mean, it seems senseless to penalize me for working in the best interests of the Agency, as I see it."
"I meant what I said," Allen said.
"You did?" Luddy laughed. "Naturally you meant it.
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You're the boss." He was shaking. "You really weren't kidding?"
Collecting her coat, Mrs. Frost moved toward the door. "I'd like to look over your Agency while I'm here. Do you mind?"
"Not at all," Allen said. "I'd be glad to show it to you. I'm quite proud of it." He opened the door for her, and the two of them walked out into the hall. Luddy remained in the office, a sick, erratic look on his face.
"I don't care for him," Mrs. Frost said. "I think you're better off without him."
"That wasn't any fun," Allen said. But he was feeling better.

3

IN THE HALL outside Myron Mavis' office, the Telemedia workers were winding up their day. The T-M building formed a connected hollow square. The open area in the center was used for outdoor sets. Nothing was in process now, because it was five-thirty and everybody was leaving.
From a pay phone, Allen Purcell called his wife. "I'll be late for dinner," he said.
"Are-you all right?"
"I'm fine," he said. "But you go ahead and eat. Big doings, big crisis at the Agency. "I'll catch something down here." He added, "I'm at Telemedia."
"For very long?" Janet asked anxiously.
"Maybe for a long, long time," he said, and hung up.
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As he rejoined Sue Frost, she said to him, "How long did Luddy work for you?"
"Since I opened the Agency." The realization was sobering: three years. Presently he added: "That's the only person I've ever let go."
At the back of the office, Myron Mavis was turning over duplicates of the day's output to a bonded messenger of the Committee. The duplicates would be put on permanent file; in case of an investigation the material was there to examine.
To the formal young messenger, Mrs. Frost said: "Don't leave. I'm going back; you can go with me."
The young man retired discreetly with his armload of metal drums. His uniform was the drab khaki of the Cohorts of Major Streiter, a select body composed of male descendants of the founder of Morec.
"A cousin," Mrs. Frost said. "A very distant cousin-in-law on my father's side." She nodded toward the young man, whose face was as expressionless as sand. "Ralf Hadler. I like to keep him around." She raised her voice. "Ralf, go find the Getabout. It's parked somewhere in back."
The Cohorts, either singly or in bunches, made Allen uncomfortable; they were humorless, as devout as machines, and, for their small number, they seemed to be everywhere. His fantasy was that the Cohorts were always in motion; in the course of one day, like a foraging ant, a member of the Cohorts roamed hundreds of miles.
"You'll come along," Mrs. Frost said to Mavis.
"Naturally," Mavis murmured. He began clearing his desk of unfinished work. Mavis was an ulcer-mongerer, a high-strung worrier with rumpled shirt and baggy, unpressed tweeds, who flew into fragments when things got over his head. Allen recalled tangled interviews that had ended with Mavis in despair and his staff scurrying. If Mavis was going to be along, the next few hours would be hectic.
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"We'll meet you at the Getabout," Mrs. Frost said to him. "Finish up here, first. We'll wait."
As she and Allen walked down the hall, Allen observed: "This is a big place." The idea of an organ-even a government organ-occupying an entire building struck him as grandiose. And much of it was underground. Telemedia, like cleanliness was next to God; after T-M came the secretaries and the Committee itself.
"It's big," Mrs. Frost agreed, striding along the hall and holding her manila folder against her chest with both hands. "But I don't know."
"You don't know what?"
Cryptically, she said: "Maybe it should be smaller. Remember what became of the giant reptiles."
"You mean curtail its activities?" He tried to picture the vacuum that would be created. "And what instead?"
"Sometimes I toy with the idea of slicing T-M into a number of units, interacting, but separately run. I'm not sure one person can or should take responsibility for the whole."
"Well," Allen said, thinking of Mavis, "I suppose it cuts into his life-expectancy."
"Myron has been Director of T-M for eight years. He's forty-two and he looks eighty. He's got only half a stomach. Someday I expect to phone and discover he's holed up at the Health Resort, doing business from there. Or from Other World, as they call that sanitarium of theirs."
"That's a long way off," Allen said. "Either place."
They had come to the door leading out, and Mrs. Frost halted. "You've been in a position to watch T-M. What do you think of it? Be honest with me. Would you call it efficient?"
"The part I see is efficient."
"What about the output? It buys your packets and it frames them for a medium. What's your reaction to the end
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result? Is the Morec garbled along the line? Do you feel your ideas survive projection?"