"Frank Herbert - Destination Void 1 Destination Void" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

switch for the room lights, then stood and turned in the blinking brilliance.

"They're clones," he said, keeping his voice cold. "They are not human; they
are clones, as is indicated by their uniform middle name of 'Lon.' They are
property! Anybody who forgets that is going off Moonbase in the next shuttle.
That sign on my door says 'Morgan Hempstead, Director.' There will be no more
emotional outbursts in this room as long as I am Director."
CHAPTER 1


We call it Project Consciousness and our basic tools are the carefully
selected clones, our Doppelgangers. The motivator is frustration; thus we
design into our system false goals and things which will go wrong. That's why
we chose Tau Ceti as the target: there is no livable planet at Tau Ceti.

-Morgan Hempstead, Lectures at Moonbase


"IT'S DEAD," Bickel said.

He held up the severed end of a feeder tube, stared at the panel from which he
had cut it. His heart was beating too fast and he could feel his hands
trembling.

Fluorescent red letters eight centimeters high spelled out a warning on the
panel in front of him. The warning seemed a mockery after what he had just
done.

"ORGANIC MENTAL CORE -- TO BE REMOVED ONLY BY LIFE-SYSTEMS ENGINEER."

Bickel felt an extra sense of quiet in the ship. Something (not someone, he
thought) was gone. It was as though the molecular stillness of outer space
had invaded the Earthling's concentric hulls and spread through to the heart
of this egg-shaped chunk of metal hurtling toward Tau Ceti.

His two companions were wrapped in this silence, Bickel saw. They were afraid
to break the quiet moment of shame and guilt and anger . . . and relief.

"What else could we do?" Bickel demanded. He held up the severed tube, glared
at it.

Raja Lon Flattery, their psychiatrist-chaplain, cleared his throat, said:
"Easy, John. We share the blame equally."

Bickel turned his glare on Flattery, noted the man's quizzical expression,
calculated and penetrating, the narrow, haughty face that somehow focused a
sense of terrible superiority within remote brown eyes and upraked black
eyebrows.

"You know what you can do with your blame!" Bickel growled, but Flattery's