"Robert A. Heinlein - Revolt in 2100 (Collected Stories)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

reported for duty at New Jerusalem.


10
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 know
about it-or can guess-I want to hear. It’s important to me.’
‘Easy now! You were afraid of shocking me; it could be that I don’t want to shock
you.’
‘What do you mean? Tell me!’
‘Easy, I said. We’re out strolling, remember, without a care in the world, talking about
our butterfly collections and wondering if we’ll have stewed beef again for dinner
tonight.’
Still fuming, I let him take me along with him. He went on more quietly, ‘John, you
obviously aren’t the type to learn things just by keeping your ear to the ground-and
you’ve not yet studied any of the Inner Mysteries, now have you?’
‘You know I haven’t. The psych classification officer hasn’t cleared me for the
course. I don’t know why.’
‘I should have let you read some of the installments while I was boning it. No, that was
before you graduated. Too bad, for they explain things in much more delicate language
than I know how to use-and justify every bit of it thoroughly, if you care for the
dialectics of religious theory. John, what is your notion of the duties of the Virgins?’

11
 ‘Why, they wait on him, and cook his food, and so forth.’
‘They surely do. And so forth. This Sister Judith-an innocent little country girl the way
you describe her. Pretty devout, do you think?’
I answered somewhat stiffly that her devoutness had first attracted me to her.