"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