"Robert A. Heinlein - If this goes on" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

her. She might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must
certainly have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her.
My roommate, Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me
out of it. Zeb was three classes senior to me and I had been one of his
plebes at the Point; now he was my closest friend and my only confidant.
‚Johnnie old son, you look like a corpse at your own wake. What’s eating on
you?’
‚Huh? Nothing at all. Touch of indigestion, maybe.’
‚So? Come on, let’s go for a walk. The air will do you good.’ I let him herd me
outside. He said nothing but banalities until we were on the broad terrace
surrounding the south turret and free of the danger of eye and ear devices.
When we were well away from anyone else he said softly, ‚Come on. Spill it.’
 ‚Shucks, Zeb, I can’t burden anybody else with it.’
‚Why not? What’s a friend for?’
‚Uh, you’d be shocked.’
‚I doubt it. The last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an
ace kicker. It restored my faith in miracles and I’ve been relatively immune
ever since. Come on-we’ll call this a privileged communication-elder adviser
and all that sort of rot.’
I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find that I let
myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the whole story
and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had been
growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem.
He nodded casually. ‚I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing
you. See here, you haven’t admitted any of this at confession, have you?’
‚No,’ I admitted with embarrassment.
‚Then don’t. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is broadminded, you wouldn’t
shock him-but he might find it necessary to pass it on to his superiors. You
wouldn’t want to face Inquisition even if you were alabaster innocent. In fact,
especially since you are innocent-and you are, you know; everybody has
impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects to find sin; if he doesn’t
find it, he keeps on digging.’
At the suggestion that I might be put to the Question my stomach almost
turned over. I tried not to show it for Zeb went on calmly, ‚Johnnie my lad, I
admire your piety and~ your innocence, but I don’t envy it. Sometimes too
much piety is more of a handicap than too little. You find yourself shocked at
the idea that it takes politics as well as psalm singing to run a big country.
Now take me; I noticed the same things when I was new here, but I hadn’t
expected anything different and wasn’t shocked.’
‚But-‚I shut up. His remarks sounded painfully like heresy; I changed the
subject. ‚Zeb, what do you suppose it could have been that upset Judith so
and caused her to faint the night she served the Prophet?’
‚Eh? How should I know?’ He glanced at me and looked away.
‚Well, I just thought you might. You generally have all the gossip around
the Palace.’
‚Well . . . oh, forget it, old son. It’s really not important.’
‚Then you do know?’
‚I didn’t say that. Maybe I could make a close guess, but you don’t want
guesses. So forget it.’
I stopped strolling, stepped in front of him and faced him. ‚Zeb, anything you