"Brian Herbert - The Race for God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

"This is ver-r-r-y special," he said.
The card was about the size of a credit card, and he said there weren't very many of them in existence. The salesman
hesitated for a moment, as if deciding whether or not he wanted to go through with what he was about to say.
"What is it?" Orbust asked.
"With this Snapcard in hand, I could sell you anything. It would tell me precisely how to win any argument with you on an
subject. I use it—on occasion—but never for the first sale of the week. That wouldn't be right. Even when most desperate
never offered it to another customer. But you . . . for some reason . . ."
"If it's so valuable, why sell it to me?"
He considered this for a moment. Then: "I'm getting older, nearing retirement age, and I don't have any children. You se
like a nice young fellow."
The salesman held the card in the upturned palm of one hand and squeezed each end of the card slightly, bending it into
gentle arc.
Orbust stared transfixed at the card. It sparkled with tiny golden lights against silver, lights that danced and spun. A whil
he was to recall that looking at the lights had made his eyelids heavy. Now thinking back on this years later, Orbust believe
had been hypnotized by the card, which suggested an explanation of how it worked. But the capabilities of the card went f
beyond that. They touched one or more ESP wavelengths and tapped into storehouses of information that were too vast to
confined within any one brain.
He tossed such recollections aside for the moment, became aware of a noise behind him. An organizing robot entered th
room, carrying a heap of family pictures. The boxy, simulated-oak robot had shelves and trays all over its body, made acce
by its long flexible arms.
"Is this everything?" the robot asked, in a very sophisticated voice.
Orbust shrugged. "I dunno. I guess."
The robot's eyes flashed green, indicating message received, and it stood to one side, scanning the photographs for chron
and sliding them into compartments. Orbust didn't know how it figured out dates, only knew what he'd heard when he boug
that it always worked.
Orbust's wife hated the robot, despite the fact that she was a messy person, one who should have welcomed the device,
it seemed to him.
She used bad language as well, and Orbust couldn't abide that.
Orbust flipped on the televid and strolled into the kitchen. He opened the upright-freezer door, felt a blast of coolness, an
stared without enthusiasm at a leftover plazymer bowl of pastawax he could reheat for dinner.
A news program blared from the televid in the other room, but only bits of information entered his consciousness. He wa
thinking about his wife, lamenting the problems he had with her.
 Karin, his wife of six years, was at a coffeehouse poetry session near the university. Orbust hated those readings, found
boring. Karin was the only money earner in the household, and as a consequence she went where she pleased, whenever
pleased. This had been another source of friction in their lives, and religion was yet another, Orbust had given up trying to
discuss religion with his wife, and for nearly a year he had gone off to church without her. He was a Reborn Krassee, one
the recently formed fundamentalist Krassian denominations.
He had the bowl of pastawax in his hands, and as he turned toward the microwave he realized the news announcer had
talking about God.
The oval televid screen was visible through the doorway, and Orbust beheld a most peculiar individual on the screen—an
immense man with scraggly hair and what looked like a green-plumed chicken on his shoulder. Green plumes? The woma
reporter interviewing the man was keeping her distance, because the bird was snapping and hissing and spitting menacingly
Orbust realized in a rush who the man was, from wire-service stories that had been carrying his incredible message across
solar system.
This was the lunatic who said he knew where God was.
"Is it true that the Bureau of Loyalty has approved your spaceships for takeoff, Mr. McMurtrey?" the reporter queried,
extending a microphone cautiously.
"Well, I hayen't actually been in touch with any BOL people," McMurtrey said, uneasily, "but a reliable intermediary info
me today that the Bureau is staying out of this."
The reporter shook her head, smiled. "I've counted half a dozen red and gold Bureau guncopters in the area, every one o