"Suzette Haden Elgin - Communipaths" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

would rejoice, Patrick says.
You see, because of the work they do the Communipaths that man the Bucket live
only to the age of eighteen, very rarely to nineteen, and from the time they take over
the stations at twelve until they die they are never allowed to leave their quarters. I am
told that they live in incredible luxury, that they may have anything that they want
merely for the asking, but what is that to them? If they were ever allowed to leave
they would not return to their stations, and that is why they must be prisoners. And
they all must die, in spite of everything that the doctors can do they always die, and
so they must be prisoners. It is so terrible, and so sad.
Ian is our teacher, and he told us all about the Bucket. He says that long ago, on
Earth, before there ever was a rocket or even a flier or a landcar, before the times we
learn about in Small History, people fought fires with what was called a Bucket
Brigade. They would form a line outside a burning building, from where they got
their water up to the building itself, and they would pass buckets of water along the
line and send the empty ones back to be filled. They had no hoses, no sprays, and
no quicker way to move the water. And that is why the Communipath Network is
called the Bucket, you see, after those bucket brigades. The stations are lined up
across the Three Galaxies and the Communipaths pass information along from
station to station, just like the buckets of water. We have no other way to do it, no
other way to move messages across space, and so we condemn the Communipaths
to death. Deliberately, knowing exactly what we are doing.
I am so glad I have no Factor Q in my blood! I have as much psibility as any
normal human child, and with the usual training (plus the Maklunite training, which is
much better, of course) I will be taught to use what I have. Already I am able to
receive messages within a single room, if they are no more than three or four
semantic units in length, and Ian says that that is very good indeed for a ten year old.
I cannot send anything at all yet, of course (except, Patrick says, if I was in real
danger, and then I could probably send a good loud yell for help, he says), but with
more training and practice I will be able to keep from disgracing myself.
Of the twenty-one in our Maklunite cluster there are seven from the Creche, and
that is a lot, because the Factor Q babies are rare. I think that is one reason that our
group is so far out from the Galactic Service, and if they were closer it would be
hard for them to get out of it.
As it is, Tomaso has to. I like him very much. He has a big deep voice and a curly
black beard almost halfway down his chest and he is always laughing. But he has to
be a Forest Ranger here on Iris because his Q rating is so high and because he
comes from a family of high ratings and they watched him very closely. (I have never
seen a forest, by the way, but when I am older I will be taken on a trip to see one,
and a waterfall, too. A waterfall is something I would really like to see.) But forest or
not; Tomaso must be a Galactic Forest Ranger, and the government will not release
him from the Service.
Patrick laughs about it. He says, “After all, Tomaso, you are paid eighty credits a
month just to baby-sit some cactuses and a herd of peripatetic flowers—and eighty
credits buys all our seed and enough left over to put fuel in the flier. Why do you
complain?”
The trouble with Anne-Charlotte’s baby was that it had so much psibility. It was
like hiding a bolt of lightning to try to hide that baby. Why, when it was no more than
two months old, if it wanted something to eat all of us would scream at
Anne-Charlotte to hurry, because the baby made our heads hurt so badly.
“And what are you going to do with it as it gets bigger, my lady?” Patrick asked