"Philip Jose Farmer - Dayworld rebel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

hot rock. Two hundred workers had been killed, and the magma had spread over fifty square miles
before halting. Fortunately, the comparatively few inhabitants of the county had been safely
evacuated. The city of Abilene in next-door Taylor County was no longer threatened.
At 5:30, he watched an hour of news, most of which was devoted to the meeting of the All-Days
World Government Council in Zurich, Switzerland, the capital of the world government.
After that, he went to a panel in the wall near the southwest corner and pulled out his supper
tray. This had been inserted from the hall outside the room. He placed the tray in a destoning
cabinet box, turned on the power for a second, opened the door, and withdrew the tray. It went
into the microwave unit, and he took it out and set it on a table by the window. While he ate, he
looked at the street through the window. Rain was beating against it; there was not much to see
except the boat-shaped blockhouse across the way. Most people, like him, were dining, and the rain
would have discouraged shoppers, anyway.
From about midnight of today until six in the morning, Duncan had slept. The morpheus machine
ensured that four hours of sleep were enough for his body and mind, but he had set the alarm for
later because he had no need to get up earlier. Now,




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though he did not feel tired, he went to bed anyway. If events went as he hoped, he would require
a lot of energy. He placed the band holding the electrode to his forehead around his head, closed
his eyes, and was voyaging into a sea of dreams. Most of them, though pleasant, were about people
whom he did not know yet felt that he had somehow known long long ago.
At eleven-thirty, he was rocketed midway from a wet dream into lonely and dry reality. He got out
of bed sluggishly, stripped off the covers, sheets, and pillowcases, put them into another wall
panel, and showered. Feeling somewhat better, he left the bathroom. By then a wall strip was
flashing and clanging, notice to him to get ready for stoning. Throughout the city-state of
Manhattan, throughout this time zone, the warning was sounding.
Clad only in shorts, very aware of being watched by the electronic eyes, he walked to the window.
If the rain had stopped while he slept, it had started again. Two men and a woman, blasted by rain
and wind, were hurrying bent over along the sidewalks. The street lights were flashing bright
orange.
Now and then, lightning curdled the night. Thunder must have been keeping it company, but the
thick walls and windows shut it out. Within his mind were also thunder and lightning, though a
physician would have described them as a storm of electrical impulses, hormones, and adrenaline,
among many million other interactions, excluding that of the brain. Duncan, however, would have
told you that he considered himself to be, not a robot, but a human being. The son of the sum was
more than the whole.
Now, he tensed. A fist seemed to be squeezing down on his heart. Looking calm (at least, he hoped
he did), he walked to the Tuesday cylinder. He opened its door outward, knowing that a red light
would be flashing on the panel before the monitor stationed on the first floor of the building.
That would notify the monitor that the prisoner was about to enter the cylinder. However, the
monitor was responsible for twelve rooms. Not all of these might be occupied. Duncan hoped that


all were. The more the monitor had to watch, the greater the chances for Duncan to fool him.
He shut the door on the Tuesday cylinder. Now, an orange light would be flashing. All the monitor