"Thomas Easton - Organic Future 03 - Woodsman" - читать интересную книгу автора (Easton Thomas A)

didn't matter what you looked like, once you--or your ancestors--had touched
the tar brush. Once a nigger, always a nigger."

When their boss still didn't seem to get it, Sheila said, "We'll start
looking for new positions immediately, of course."

"Of course."
 Later, walking home, Sam said, "Dr. Ohmigod!" The nickname had come from
another teacher, one who knew a little Russian. He spat toward the gutter,
prompting a patrolling litterbug to dart from behind a passing Tortoise. When
it found nothing worth retrieving, it returned to its station in the stream of
traffic.

"You'd think they'd learned something in school," he added. "But no.
They'd rather believe wishes. And there just aren't the resources to..."

"Bigots," said his wife. "Short-sighted, hide-bound, reactionary bigots!"
They were passing a small neighborhood park separated from the sidewalk by a
low brick wall. Behind the wall rose a billow of honeysuckle vines, their pink
and yellow blossoms swaying upright, like wineglasses, on their stems. A
number of men and women leaned against or sat on the wall, and one of them,
blue-clad and golden-patched, lurched into their path. He stopped and raised
one fist, a honeysuckle blossom crumpled in it. His features sagged as if he
had left, somewhere, a trail of other blossoms. His breath reeked of
honeysuckle wine.

"Who you callin' a bigot, greenie?" he said.

The Nickers stopped. Sam tightened his grip on the handle of his
briefcase--solid metal and wood, and heavy with books and papers--until his
knuckles blanched. He glared. He put all the anger he was feeling, all the
menace he could summon up, into his voice as he said, "Get out of our way."

Surprise or shock made the other's face go even slacker. He turned toward
his friends along the wall as if to ask for help in cowing his prey, but they
did not move. One shrugged and pointed toward the road with a stubbly chin.
Sam snatched a look in that direction and saw a long-clawed police Roachster
moving slowly in their direction. When he looked back, their accoster was no
longer in their way.



When they reached home, they stopped first in the building's basement
stable. There they fed and watered their Beetle. A vehicle with a strong
resemblance to one of the twentieth-century internal combustion automobiles
now visible only in museums and parades, it had been gengineered from an
insect by enlarging the body and legs, reinforcing the exoskeleton with an
internal framework modeled on--but stronger than--that of mammals, and
creating a passenger compartment in the abdomen. Its shell was bright red.