"Stephen Goldin - Scavenger Hunt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goldin Stephen) Tyla looked around. Indeed, nearly everyone in the closed circle of
Society was here, but that was only to be expected. The Scavenger Hunt was the Game, held only once every twenty years. Nobody who could possibly attend would dream of missing its opening. And, of course, the Hunt Ball on the evening before the Grand Lift-off would naturally be the biggest social event of two decades. Her eyes roamed over the tables set around the perimeter of the dance floor. Every face was familiar to her from previous parties except… "Who's that?" she asked, pointing at a good-looking young man sitting alone and dejected at one table. Nillia's expression dropped, and her voice became even more conspiratorial. "Oh. Believe me, dear, you wouldn't want anything to do with that. It's one of those androids from the planet Hellfire." Tyla had never met an android before, though she had of course heard of them. They had been developed on Hellfire to alleviate that planet's manpower shortage. They were grown synthetically in vats, DNA-tailored for their desired characteristics, then molded and trained for their specific tasks. Hellfire had begun exporting them to the rest of the Galaxy twenty or so years ago; Tyla seemed to recall something a long time back about their having won some citizenship rights after a strike, but she couldn't be sure. Such things didn't really concern her, or influence her life to any great extent. She peered more closely at the lone figure. It appeared awfully young to her, more like a boy than a man—and that in itself was surprising; since androids came out of their processing plants fully grown and aged very slowly, they were normally made to appear of a more ripened age—say, sixty or so. This one looked barely twenty. In trying to fit in with the new Society it was visiting, it had bought some obviously expensive and well-tailored clothes; but the fashion was last year's, and consequently the android's ignorance stood out even more. It had the fashionable shaven part in its hair, but that was barely a centimeter wide. The android was tall and thin, the limbs greatly exaggerated. Gawky. As though built to elicit motherly sympathies from the women while not alienating the men as a threat to their virility. Not bad looking, really, she thought—adding quickly, for a thing. "How did it get in here?" she asked aloud. "You mean to say you hadn't heard about the scandal? My dear, you have been out of touch, haven't you? That creature has enrolled in the Hunt." Tyla was genuinely shocked. "I didn't know they'd let one in." "They didn't want to, I can assure you of that. But the rules were quite explicit—any male sentient being who can pay the entrance fee can enroll. The Hunt Committee members didn't want to look as though they were |
|
|