"The Planners by Kate Wilhelm" - читать интересную книгу автора (1969)

He knew why he didn't break it off. Pity. The most corro-
sive emotion endogenous to man. She was the product of the
doll school that taught that the trip down the aisle was the
end, the fulfillment of a maiden's dreams; shocked and horri-
fied to learn that it was another beginning, some of them
never recovered. Lea never had. Never would. At sixty she
would purse her lips at the sexual display of uncivilized
animals, whether human or not, and she would be disgusted
and help formulate laws to ban such activities. Long ago he
had hoped a child would be the answer, but the school did
something to them on the inside too. They didn't conceive, or
if conception took place, they didn't carry the fruit, and if
they carried it, the birth was of a stillborn thing. The ones
that did live were usually the ones to be pitied more than those
who fought and were defeated in utero.
A bat swooped low over the quiet pool and was gone again
against the black of the azaleas. Soon the moon would appear,
and the chimps would stir restlessly for a while, then return
to deep untroubled slumber. The chimps slept companionably
close to one another, without thought of sex. Only the noc-
turnal creatures, and the human creatures, performed coitus
in the dark. He wondered if Adam remembered his human
captors. The colony in the compound had been started almost
twenty years ago, and since then none of the chimps had seen
a human being. When it was necessary to enter the grounds,
the chimps were fed narcotics in the evening to insure against
their waking. Props were changed then, new obstacles added
to the old conquered ones. Now and then a chimp was
removed for study, usually ending up in dissection. But not
Adam. He was father of the world. Darin grinned in the
darkness.
Adam took his bride aside from the other beasts and knew
that she was lovely. She was his own true bride, created for
him, intelligence to match his own burning intelligence.
Together they scaled the smooth walls and glimpsed the great
world that lay beyond their garden. Together they found the
opening that led to the world that was to be theirs, and they
left behind them the lesser beings. And the god searched for
them and finding them not, cursed them and sealed the open-
ing so that none of the others could follow. So it was that
Adam and his bride became the first man and woman and
from them flowed the progeny that was to inhabit the entire
world. And one day Adam said, for shame woman, seest thou
that thou art naked? And the woman answered, so are you,
big boy, so are you. So they covered their nakedness with
leaves from the trees, and thereafter they performed their
sexual act in the dark of night so that man could not look on
his woman, nor she on him. And they were thus cleansed of
shame. Forever and ever. Amen. Hallelujah.
Darin shivered. He had drowsed after all, and the night