"David Marusek - Getting to Know You" - читать интересную книгу автора (Marusek David)

Victor stood in the doorway. “No!” he cried. “Never sign!”

“Hush, Victor,” Nancy said.

He entered the room, stepping through beds and bodies. “Never sign
away your life, Mrs. Hurley.” The woman appeared even more frightened.
“We’ve returned to Ro-man society,” he bellowed. “Masters and servants!
Pluto-crats and slaves! Oh, where is the benevolent middle class when we
need it?”

“Victor,” Nancy said sternly and pointed to the door.

And she nodded to Zoranna, “You too. Have your tea. I’ll join you.”
 Zoranna followed Victor to the kitchen, sat at the counter, and
watched him set out cups and saucers, sugar and soybimi lemon. He
unwrapped and sliced a dark cake. He was no stranger to this kitchen.

“It’s a terrible thing what they did to your sister,” he said.

“Who? What?”

He poured boiling water into the pot. “Teaching was her life.”

“Teaching?” Zoranna said, incredulous. “You’re talking about
something that ended thirty years ago.”

“It’s all she ever wanted to do.”

“Tough!” she said. “We’ve all paid the price of lon-gevity. How can
you teach elementary school when there’re no more children? You can’t. So
you retrain. You move on. What’s wrong with working for a living? You join
an outfit like this,” she gestured to take in the whole tower above her,
“you’re guaranteed your livelihood for life! The only thing not handed you on
a silver platter is longevity. You have to earn that yourself. And if you can’t,
what good are you?” When she remembered that two dozen people lay
dying in the next room because they couldn’t do just that, she lowered her
voice. “Must society carry your dead weight through the centuries?”

Victor laughed and placed his large hand on hers. “I see you are a
true freebooter, Zoe. I wish everyone had your initiative, your drive! But
sadly, we don’t. We yearn for simple lives, and so we trim people’s hair all
day. When we tire of that, they retrain us to pare their toenails. When we tire
of that, we die. For we lack the souls of servants. A natural servant is a rare
and precious person. How lucky our masters are to have discovered
cloning! Now they need find but one servile person among us and clone
him repeatedly. As for the rest of us, we can all go to hell!” He removed his
hand from hers to pour the tea. Her hand immediately missed his. “But such
morbid, talk on such a festive occasion!” he roared. “How wonderful to
finally meet the famous Zoe. Nancy speaks only of you. She says you are