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

The Head smiled at him. "Not only is it an excellent reason, my good Citizen Asodelyr," he said, "but we should not be here more than perhaps twenty minutes."
"All this fuss for twenty minutes?" Asodelyr struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Absurd!"
From across the table, Tayn Kellyr looked up from her microviewer and frowned.
"What would you have suggested that we do in order to give you our news, Citizen Asodelyr?" she murmured. "Perhaps a comset announcement?"
"I simply—"
"You know quite well," she went on, cutting him off, "that it is not safe for the Council of Eight to transmit any information whatsoever—no matter how brief, or seemingly trivial—by any means other than face to face contact. We deplore as much as you do the necessity for all this melodramatic junketing about in caves and tree trunks; nonetheless, it is essential if we are to preserve our secrecy."
Asodelyr lowered his eyes, rebuked into silence, and the Head moved to fill the awkward silence. There were times when he wished that Tayn Kellyr could find a little more tolerance for the foibles of others in her heart, although conceivably such a tolerance might diminish her usefulness.
"We have good news," he said quickly. "You should all be pleased."
"High time," said Donald Minora, representative of Castle Able. "We have put enough effort into this project, and enough years of work.''
"We were fortunate to have had those years' warning, Citizen," said the Head. "Can you conceive of what our problems would have been had we not had all this time?"
"I can. I am not a fool," Minora snapped. "Now could we have the news? Or is this to be like the threedy newscasts, Citizen Begaye, with little feelers to build the suspense?"
Aaron Begaye sighed softly, wishing he were Head of almost anything but a council of eight superchiefs. Eight people accustomed to instant obedience from everyone around them, eight people who took their enormous power for granted. Too many to have in one room.
"Will you tell them, please, Citizen Kellyr," he said. "You are more familiar with the details, I believe, than anyone else here."
"Very well," said Tayn Kellyr. "It is a simple matter ... the plan has at least begun its final stages. The TGIS agent, Coyote Jones, will arrive on Freeway in four days."
"Excellent!" said Bent Cady, of Castle Olyon. "That is welcome news, and I agree with Citizen Minora—it is high time."
"Until as recently as three weeks ago," Tayn Kellyr went on, "we were far from certain that the Tri-Galactic Council was going to accept our story. If they had not done so we could not have risked our plan—not with the proportion of our Citizens now defecting to the Shavvy cult."
"That proportion," put in the Head, "had reached thirty-one per cent, as of dawn this morning, and of that thirty-one per cent almost a fifth comes from Castle families and high-ranking Fealtors."
Enaphel Smythe, representative of Helix, smacked the table with a powerful fist and swore.
"Only a week ago it was not yet at thirty per cent," he protested. "What is the matter with people, anyway?"
"Well," said Tayn Kellyr, "it is possible to understand the behavior of the Fealtors, I think. Part of their defection is our own fault for not being more generous with them—particularly in the southern Sectors—and they are given to superstition. The Silver's tricks appeal to them. But for our own people, I cannot explain this phenomenon at all. They are educated. They know that religion has almost nothing to do with spirituality and is simply a matter of economics, but they behave like children just hearing the Miracle Myths from the edcomputer. It baffles me ... particularly in view of the practices of the cult."
"The repulsive practices," Smythe said, his face working with distaste. "Mauling about in one another's minds—"
The gavel was symbolic, and a symbolic relic at that, but Aaron Begaye hit the table with it anyway. He countenanced no salacious talk, no dirty allusions, in his presence—not even from men or women far gone in celebration. At a meeting like this he would tolerate not even a nuance.
"Sorry," muttered Enaphel Smythe. "I am sorry ... but it is so disgusting."
"No need for you to be disgusting in return," said the Head firmly.
The representative from Castle Tenasselle leaned forward, reaching for a cup of tea from the center of the table, and spoke to Tayn Kellyr. "Do you think," she asked, "that this man is going to serve our purposes? After all, the Tri-Galactic Intelligence Service is hardly an ideal recruiting ground for dupes ... at least one hopes that it is not."
"I do think so, Citizen Bass," said Tayn Kellyr. "He is perfectly suited to our needs, he is basically an ignorant man, he is known to be given to emotional excesses of various kinds, and he is completely unaware that he is here for any purpose other than that explained to him by his superiors."
"Emotional excesses ... "
Tayn Kellyr shrugged. "He is excessively fond of women, I understand, and a perfect fool about children. Just the sort of person who might be taken in by the romantic nonsense the Shavvies deal in."
"And if he becomes suspicious?"
"How could he?" said the Head. "We have survived eighteen years on this planet without our own Citizens suspecting our existence. How should an off-worlder become suspicious? Of course he won't; he will do what we intend him to do and nothing more."
"Good," came the responses from around the room. "Excellent."
Philomena Bass sipped her tea, still frowning, but she made no more protests, asking only, "What do you want us to do now, then? What steps shall we take?"
"Step up the pressure," said the Head flatly. "Make things worse. Create unrest. More incidents such as happened yesterday at Castle Fra. More young boys slapped for ringing the Chapel bell one too many times. That's what is needed. I cannot emphasize too strongly that it is absolutely necessary that the people, both noble and Fealtor, become more and more restless, more and more upset, about conditions in the Sectors. We cannot afford to have a single contented Citizen, if we are to succeed. They must become distressed enough to ensure that they will welcome the final outcome of our plan."
"You exaggerate, Citizen Begaye," said Tayn Kellyr. "Our computers indicate that we can afford to have as high as thirteen per cent of the people uninvolved in all this."
"It was a figure of speech, my dear cousin," said the Head.
"This is no time for rhetorical flourishes."
"Agreed," said the Head wearily. "Please go on."
"It was you who were talking, Citizen Begaye."
"Ah, yes, I lose track at times, as I get older. Perhaps one of you others should take over the post of Head of this Council."
He waited, but no one offered. They all had better sense, and he only wished that eighteen years ago he had been similarly wise. It was a thankless post.
"Are there any questions?" he said finally. "Any leftover difficulties?"
"One question," said Philomena Bass. "Will it work?"
"Indications are that it has almost no chance of failing," said Tayn Kellyr. "We have moved so slowly. So carefully. Every contingency has been anticipated."
"You know what the loss of Old Faith tithes will do to us if this fails?"
Tayn Kellyr frowned at her. "If it fails," she said, "we shall move on at once to the backup plan next on our list of success-probables. Let us not become emotional."
"Your husband," said Enaphel Smythe, "is doing an excellent job. Never have I seen such a bumbler, such a clumsy tactless man, such a—well ... what word is nearest to my meaning? ... such a perfect example of an administrator. One thinks of the great Business Riots of 2989 ... "
"As I recall," Tayn Kellyr observed, "it was for that precise reason that the Council chose Bardow as husband for me, fifteen years ago."
"He has surpassed our wildest dreams," said the Head. "It is astonishing that he escaped Reconditioning. Any other questions?"
There was silence around the table, and he nodded with satisfaction. He was as anxious to get home as any of them, and it was both damp and cold inside this tree.
"You know your role, then," he said. "Make trouble. Cause chaos. The TGIS agent must see evidence that he is really needed here, that his mission is real and not the panicky paranoia of a Novice Planet. He must be convinced that Drussa Silver is in fact destroying our society."