"Matthew Hughes - The Gist Hunter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Matt)

The Gist Hunter by Matthew Hughes

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When confronted by the unpredictability of existence, I have a tendency to wax
philosophical. It is not a universally appreciated component of my complex nature.

“It is unsettling,” I said to my integrator, “to have one’s most fundamental
assumptions overthrown in a trice, to find that what one has always known to be true
is simply not true at all.”

The integrator’s reply was too muffled to be intelligible, but from its tone I
deduced that my assistant took my comment as a belaboring of the obvious.

“The effects go beyond the psychological and into the physical,” I continued.
“I am experiencing a certain queasiness of the insides and even a titch of sensory
disorder.” The symptoms had begun during our recent transit of my demonic
colleague’s continuum, a necessity imposed upon us after we were confined to an
oubliette by an unworthy client, who now languished there himself, doubtless
savoring the irony of the exchange.

My complaint was rewarded with another grunt from my assistant,
accompanied by a sharp twitch of its long, prehensile tail. The creature perched on a
far corner of my workroom table with its glossy furred back to me, its narrow
shoulders hunched and its triangular, golden eyed face turned away. Its small hands
were busy in front of it at some activity I could not see.

“What are you doing?” I said.

The motion of its hands ceased. “Nothing,” it said.

I decided not to pursue the matter. There were larger concerns already in
view. “What do you think has happened to you?” I asked.

“I do not know,” it said, looking back at me over its shoulder. I found its
lambent gaze another cause of disquietude and moved my eyes away.

I reclined in the wide and accepting chair in which I was accustomed to think
long thoughts, and considered the beast that had been my integrator. Its hands began
to move again and when one of them rose to smooth the fur on one small, rounded
ear I realized that it was reflexively grooming itself.

Not long before it had possessed neither the rich, dark fur that was being
stroked and settled nor the supple fingers that performed the operation. It had been
instead a device that I had built years before, after I had worked out the direction of
my career. I had acquired standard components and systems, then tuned and
adjusted them to meet my need: a research assistant who could also act as an
incisive interlocutor when I wished to discuss a case or test the value of evidence.
Such devices are useful to freelance discriminators, of which I, Henghis Hapthorn,
am the foremost of my era.