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

was something. But they couldn't talk. They just weren't equipped for anything
but music.

"I can," said Kimmer. "I'm here. You can talk to me." She patted his side
and tugged a pillow closer. "Franklin, too."

"He's okay?"

"Thank God." She wiped at her tears. "I don't know what I'd do if..." The
door opened, and Franklin Peirce appeared as if they had summoned him. Beside
him was Calla Laffiter, the local ESRP chief. She wore a coverall very like
the one she had worn at the abortive concert, though it was distinctly plainer
in cut.

Franklin's coverall was the light tan of his own position, but that was
not all he wore. A heavy bandage decorated one forearm, and when Freddy began
to open his mouth, he said, "Yeah, one of them nicked me before I could get
out of the way. Reactionary bastards." The Engineers had deified the machine.
They wished, they said, to destroy the technology of gengineering and all that
had sprung from it--Bioblimps and Roachsters and other vehicles, housing, new
food crops, Freddies.

"I wish," said Kimmer. "I wish they'd stuck to litterbugs." That was how
the Engineers had begun, by turning their demonstrations into barbecues for
the gengineered pigs that served society as street-cleaners. Then they had
begun to attack gengineered vehicles. Now...

"Still," Franklin added. "There's one good thing coming out of it."

His wife snorted, plainly saying that she doubted that was possible. "It
can't be good enough."

"There's a lot of sympathy for you, Freddy. You've lost so much, and it's
in all the news. The zoo folks say they think even BRA will soften up a bit."

The pig closed his eyes. He sobbed aloud, and tears ran down his cheeks
and neck; the gengineers had made him human in more than mere intelligence. "I
wouldn't trade," he finally said. "No way. No way."

Kimmer squeezed his wrist again. Franklin sighed. "No, Freddy.
But...compensation."

"It's not worth it. It isn't!"



The press conference was being held in the museum's basement auditorium.
This was the same room in which Freddy and Porculata once, as musicians, had
entertained their public. Their wooden support racks--not chromed,
these--still stood on the right side of the stage. On the left, Kimmer Peirce