"Barry N. Malzberg - A Galaxy Called Rome" - читать интересную книгу автора (Malzberg Barry N)

can have solved the mysteries of the FTL drive, and yet finds the
fact of his own biology as stupefying as he has throughout
history, but every sociologist understands that those who live in
a culture are least qualified to criticize it (because they have
fully assimilated the codes of the culture, even as to criticism),
and Lena does not see this irony any more than the reader will
have to in order to appreciate the deeper and more

14
 A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg



metaphysical irony of the story, which is this: that greater
speed, greater space, greater progress, greater sensation has
not resulted in any definable expansion of the limits of
consciousness and personality and all that the FTL drive is to
Lena is an increasing entrapment.
It is important to understand that she is merely a technician;
that although she is highly skilled and has been trained through
the Bureau for many years for her job as pilot, she really does
not need to possess the technical knowledge of any graduate
scientists of our own time . . . that her job, which is essentially a
probe-and-ferrying, could be done by an adolescent; and that all
of her training has afforded her no protection against the
boredom and depression of her, assignment.
When she is done with this latest probe, she will return to
Uranus and be granted a six-month leave. She is looking

15
 A Galaxy Called Rome by Barry N. Malzberg



forward to that. She appreciates the opportunity. She is only
twenty-eight, and she is tired of being sent with the dead to
tumble through the spectrum for weeks at a time, and what she
would very much like to be, at least for a while, is a young
woman. She would like to be at peace. She would like to be
loved. She would like to have sex.

VII


Something must be made of the element of sex in this story, if
only because it deals with a female protagonist (where asepsis
will not work); and in the tradition of modem literary science
fiction, where some credence is given to the whole range of
human needs and behaviors, it would be clumsy and amateurish
to ignore the issue. Certainly the easy scenes can be written and