"Kraus-WhiteWalls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kraus Stephen)

Jacobson froze, his face centimeters from the monitor. His fingers gripped the
edge of his desk. What was the director doing? He was a strange man: insular,
unpredictable, easily agitated. But this made no sense. He'd never shown any
interest in women before, much less . . .

The image blurred, then refocused. Julia pushed the white suit down over her
legs, her arms shaking noticeably. She reached up to touch her hair, for
reassurance, and found only a plastic hood.

"Dance," the director said.

She put her hands to her face. She may have been crying; the robot's optics
weren't good enough to tell.

The director took a step closer. "You'll be naked in the articulation lab."

She looked up. "I will?"

"Of course. We're designing robots that mimic human movement. You're their rule
base, their teacher. Robots don't wear clothes."

She nodded tentatively.

"Dance," he said.

After a minute she moved an arm to one side. She lifted to her toes, knelt. She
closed her eyes, listening for some rhythm in the white noise of the
recirculators. She straightened one leg and posed, bent it again and turned. She
kept her eyes tightly shut.

The director let her continue for several minutes. "All right," he said
abruptly. "Very good."

She stopped.

"We had another woman in a month ago. Very nervous. She couldn't stop shaking.
You're quite natural."

Julia touched her cap again. "What happened to her?"

"She's dead."

Jacobson tried to extract more information from that statement. He didn't
remember the other woman, hadn't ever met her. But the director's voice conveyed
no regret, no irony, no threat. Only fact.

His gaze was very steady, but it was impossible to tell where he was looking.
Julia seemed uncertain whether to dress.

"How long will I have to stay here?" she asked evenly, knowing she'd earned a