"Elgin,.Suzette.Haden.-.Star.Anchored.Star.Angered" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

"Not the Students, surely."
"Ah, but yes it is the Students—surely. Most surely. They do almost everything, so long as they are here. If they didn't, we'd be developing elitists, who would then take their elitism into our governments, our ed-programs, our hospitals, and our arts—and that would not do. History has ample evidence as to where that leads." She reached up to push a stud on the wall behind her head, and he saw her eyes flicker briefly in open mindspeech, presumably with someone better at it than he was.
"It won't take long," she said. "Among the skills we develop here is efficiency."
Coyote pulled a big cushion from a pile of them set against a near wall, and made himself more comfortable, pleased that she did not see fit to bring in any lights to supplement the moons. Certain muscles of his body responded to the rearrangement with pleasure, and he smiled a general sort of smile, aimed at all things within radius.
"It's nice here," he said. "I like it. Inside, I like it. Outside, I dislike it very much."
The Dean chuckled. "Most people do at first," she said.
"You have real Teachers here?" Coyote asked lazily, making polite conversation while they waited. "Live ones?"
"Of course."
"Real ones, like they had back in the days before the Education Riots. Standing at the front of a room before a bunch of Students, talking."
"Yes," she said, "just like that. How does that strike you? Would you like to make an impassioned speech against the practice?"
"Do you hear a lot of those?"
"Certainly. 'Damned waste of the taxpayers' money! Archaic anachronism!' 'Let's put everybody on the edcomputers and use the Multiversities for ... ' I don't know. I think grain warehouses was the suggestion I heard most recently."
"But you don't think you're wasting money."
"Have another of those pillows, Citizen Jones," said the Dean. "The blue ones are the most comfortable. No. No, I don't think we are wasting money. I think that what we do here is more important than anything else done, anywhere else, by anybody else, in all the known universe. Does that answer your question?"
A soft "Ping!" behind him spared him from trying to achieve a suitable reply. A tall pitcher appeared, amber in the moonlight and beaded with frost, and a basket of hot sandwiches. Eating utensils, napkins, mugs ... and a long, narrow mysterious box. The Student responsible for it all was gone with a speed that reminded him of the way the Dean whipped files in and out.
"You see?" she said. "Efficient, as promised. Help yourself."
"Citizen Dean, is that beer?" he asked hopefully.
"Certainly." The Dean poured them each a full tall mug. "Only beverage fit to drink anymore, to my mind," she said. "Synthetic wines ... phaugh ... enough to make a person gag. You like beer?"
Coyote rubbed his hands together, lifted the mug, took a long, cold draught, and let his face speak for him. Bliss. He was a happy man.
"Look at these, Citizen," the Dean was saying. "Aren't they spectacular?"
She was holding out the mysterious box to him, open now, and he looked into it curiously. The pseudo-tattoos that filled it were packed in layers between sheets of static-resistant clear plastic, and there was quite an assortment of them.
"I'm keeping the loincloth," he said firmly, "and this is a very good sandwich."
"Glad you like it—it's one of our best. Mostly protein, it can be fixed in two minutes flat, and it doesn't spill all over you when you're studying. The perfect sandwich. However, as to the loincloth—"
"I'm keeping it," he said. "I mean that. And I'll have no insects crawling up my penis, or snakes twining round it, or flowers blossoming out of the tip. My anatomy gets quite enough attention all on its own, without working at making it conspicuous. And my loins, dear Citizen Dean, are going to be girded up with conservative navy blue cloth, as always. No garlands of posies."
"Dear me, but you're vehement about it," she said mildly, looking at him over the edge of her beer.
"I am that," he agreed. "I surely am."
"Very well, then, we'll have to do something to offset the conservatism. Stand up, please."
And she proceeded to do him up, head to foot, as a Pokka Flame-tree. Orange roots wound round his ankles and feet and disappeared under his soles, silver-and-white-striped bark wound round his arms and legs, and despite the interference of his heavy beard and moustache, she managed to add at least a dozen scarlet blossoms. The crowning touch was a pita-bird, colored like the rainbow, perched over his left eyebrow.
Coyote looked at himself with disgust and said a few words on the subject, but the Dean was adamant.
"Do you want to look like a Student, Citizen Jones, or don't you?" she demanded.
"Do you realize," he grumbled, "how easy it would be to pass yourself off as a Student? Easiest blooming—and I do mean blooming—disguise in the Three Galaxies!"
"Mmmmm ... not so easy as you think. Not without help."
"Why not?"
"Up until the first time you tried to use your credit disc, or any other kind of identification, you'd be all right. At that precise moment the Central Computers would punch in for an electronic roll call of all Students, and all of a sudden there'd be one thousand and one, and the other thousand all accounted for."
"At which point?"
"At which point Fed-robots would come from more directions than you were aware existed. At a speed ... oh, roughly that of narrow light. And you'd be in one of the biggest troubles there is, Citizen."
Coyote frowned, set down his sandwich and his beer, and opened his mouth to speak, but she raised that finger again and stopped him.
"In your case," she said, "in your very special and mysterious case, the computers have been reprogrammed to accept you. You'll have no trouble, Coyote Jones—no trouble at all."
When the man had gone, armed with all the vocal information she had been able to provide in so short a time, plus a micro-xerox of her own copies of Shavvy rituals and sacred documents, and the file of basics, Dean O'Halloran sat by her window watching the trees cast patterns across the sloping lawns of Harvard. The problem she faced was anything but academic.
She had more than enough power to do whatever she wanted; that wasn't the difficulty. The difficulties were twofold. First, she had no idea why Coyote Jones was being sent to Freeway, and she had good reason to be distressed about that gap in her knowledge. The second difficulty was more abstract: how was she to fit what she felt must be done into the framework of what her religious convictions would allow her to do? Having Coyote Jones shot, which appealed to her in a way she found shocking, was clearly not the solution. Stopping him from reaching Freeway—stopping him completely—was clearly impossible, given the lofty source of the pressure being exerted to send him there. Violence was forbidden to her no matter what she planned, and complete inaction was not within the bounds of her own tolerance.
As was her habit in such situations, she made lists. Lists of the problems, lists of the possible solutions—ranked for their varying degrees of outrageousness—lists of the steps necessary to effect those solutions, and lists of the advantages and disadvantages of each. It took a little time, but when she got to the end of the process, she had answered her own questions.
Delay. Delay required no violence—only interference—and she had at her disposal an assortment of ways to create delays. Virtually endless delays, if that should prove necessary. And it might. She needed time to find out what sort of danger the man represented. He was handicapped; that was certain. She had tried half a dozen times to reach him by mindspeech and it had been like addressing a wall, or a rock. And yet, if he had not been special in some way, he could not have been sent to take part in this venture ... which was what?
But she would have to move quickly now. Very quickly. The liner with Coyote Jones aboard, suitably disguised as a Student in all his horticultural glory, would be docking at Phoenix-One within three hours. Unless she could manage to wangle a long period of circling in orbit, a longer wait for landing clearance, perhaps a bit of trouble with the landing mechanisms that nobody would be able to locate for quite a while ...
The Dean spent five more minutes putting together another list; this time it was a list of names. Then she went to her comset and began making calls.

Chapter Two
Once a stewardess out walking
Thought she heard a Waker talking;
Off she ran to see her Shrink,
Didn't even stop to think