"Frank Herbert - The Nothing" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

easier. That's been fixed immovably.'
'And what if we don't want to?' asked Claude.
'Yeah,' I said. 'What about that?' But I have to admit the idea wasn't totally repulsive. As
I've said, Claude looked like Sidney Harch, only younger. He had something-you can call it
animal magnetism if you wish.
The old man just smiled. 'Miss Carlysle,' he said, 'do you honestly object to-'
'As long as I'm going to be in the family you can call me Jean,' I said.
I was beginning to feel fatalistic about the whole thing. My great aunt Harriet was a
prescient and I'd had experience with them. Now I was remembering the time she told me my
kitty was going to die and I hid it in the old cistern and that night it rained and filled the
cistern. Naturally the kitty drowned. I never forgave her for not telling me how the kitty was
going to die.
Old Williams looked at me and said, 'At least you're being reasonable.'
'I'm not,' said Claude. So I told them about my great aunt Harriet. 'It's the nature of
things,' said Williams. 'Why can't you be as reasonable as she's being, son?'
Claude just sat there with the original stone face. 'Am I so repulsive?' I asked.
He looked at me then. Really looked. I tell you I got warm under it. I know I'm not repulsive.
Finally, I guess I blushed.
'You're not repulsive,' he said. 'I just object to having my whole life ordered out for me like
a chess set up.'
Stalemate. We sat there for a minute or so, completely silent. Presently Williams turned to
me and said, 'Well, Miss Carlysle, I presume you're curious about what's going on here.'
'I'm not a moron,' I said. 'This is one of the Nothing Preserves.'
'Correct,' he said. 'Only it's more than that. Your education includes the knowledge of how
our talents developed from radiation mutants. Does it also include the knowledge of what
happens to extremes from the norm?' Every schoolkid knows that, of course. So I told him.
Sure I knew that the direction of development was toward the average. That genius parents
tend to have children less smart than they are. This is just general information.
Then the old man threw me the twister. 'The talents are disappearing, my dear,' he said.
I just sat there and thought about that for awhile. Certainly I knew it'd been harder lately
to get a 'porter, even one of the old gent kind.
'Each generation has more children without talents or with talents greatly dulled,' said
Williams. 'We will never reach a point where there are absolutely none, but what few remain
will be needed for special jobs in the public interest.'
'You mean if I have kids they're liable to be Nothings?' I asked.
'Look at your own family,' he said. 'Your great aunt was a prescient. Have there been any
others in your family?'
'Well, no, but-'
'The prescient talent is an extreme,' he said. 'There are fewer than a thousand left. There
are nine of us in my category. I believe you refer to us as the Big All.'
'But we've got to do something!' I said. 'The world'll just go to pot!'
'We are doing something,' he said. 'Right here and on eight other preserves scattered
around the world. We're reviving the mechanical and tool skills which supported the pretalent
civilization and we're storing the instruments which will make a rebirth of that civilization
possible.'
He raised a warning hand. 'But we must move in secrecy. The world's not yet ready for this
information. It would cause a most terrible panic if this were to become known.'
'Well, you're prescient. What does happen?' I asked him.
 'Unfortunately, none of us are able to determine that,' he said. 'Either it's an unfixed line or
there's some interference which we can't surmount.' He shook his head and the goatee