"mayflies02" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

"S-s-sounds good," Sal replied. "What do the rest of you think?"
"I think it's cold," laughed a teenage girl. The others echoed her.
"It is." agreed Sal. "Mak? Steve?"
"Yeah, a ridge is okay," said the former.
"I guess so," answered the latter, brushing snow off his pad. "Let's go in."
While the others talked and joked, she stayed silent. Twenty-on tiptoes in the lock, she counted heads-seven people had bothered to show, but forty-nine lived in the northwest quadrant of Level One. Where were the rest? Too busy celebrating their escape from their former environment to help plan their present one? Dammit, she thought, gotta figure out how to make them care. It won't work unless they become integral parts of it.
She was disappointed, too, that those who had come had expressed so little in the way of opinion. She'd wanted the park to be planned democratically, but nobody'd called for a waterfall, or even a gully. They're too elated, she realized. They're so sky-high happy they figure this just has to come out right . . . guess I can't blame them, either.
Back in the Common Room, sipping a dry sherry, she stood before the picture window and studied the cold ground. From behind, the hologram was a faint film before the eyes. The other two, though, were beautiful, absolutely beautiful, and filled with an ecologist's dream of details. A deer browsed between the pines; birds darted through the air . . . she wondered. Is this right? It's our past; maybe we should leave it at home . . . the psychologists had said that the parks would be important, would provide necessary stimuli, would serve as significant links to a lost world and, possibly, as germination beds for a new one . . . but still.
A four-meter hatch between the ceilings of Levels One and Two jutted out like an impudent tongue, then lowered its free end to the ground. A dozen servomechanisms rolled down it. Half were fitted with bulldozer blades; the others bore long sheets of metal.
"Central Computer," Ioanni asked, "what's with the tin?" The bulldozers were already scraping the dirt away from her end.
"Forms, Madame President-we have a finite amount of soil, so the ridge will be hollow."
"I see." She squinted at a new batch of servos. "And the chicken wire, that's fencing?"
"No. Gravity-field generators to maintain the park through deceleration. The deck has some, but since the ridgetop will be eight meters from the nearest, supplementary units are needed beneath the topsoil."
"If you say so. Look. Make the ridge, uh, natural, all right? Roughen it, vary its width from, say, twenty-five to thirty-five meters, and . . . " Frowning, she studied the set-up. "And run a babbling brook along' the inside curve, stock it with native fish, plants, and insects. Can you?"
"Easily," said Central Computer.
"Thanks." She turned away trying to decide what to do next. Probably a shower, she thought, but then . . . she was tempted to join the party by the bar, even if her neo-Puritanism disapproved of nonstop revelry. Of course, she could return to her Personal Work Area-her office-and finish the floor plan . . . or maybe Steve was in the suite, yes, love-making would soothe her disappointments, heighten her mood . . .
"Sal."
The high-pitched voice shattered her reverie as though it were crystal. Blinking, she turned. "Ogden. Good afternoon."
"I must speak with you," said Ogden Dunn, His gray eyes were as stormy as thunderclouds. His fingers, curled into fat fists, were jammed on his hips. "At once!"
"So speak." she said, amused by his pugnacity but keeping her face calm. Short people, she knew, get upset when they're not taken seriously.
"I was informed," he began, investing each word with disdainful gravity, "that if I do not report for an exercise session tomorrow morning, and then an hour of manual labor-" the way he pronounced it, "manual labor" had the same emotional content as "licking lepers"-"that I would be guilty of an offense against the civil code, and would be punished appropriately. I have come to protest."
"It's the law, Ogden." She sniffed. He was drenched with some kind of musky Cologne. Again she struggled with her face.
"Dammit, Sal, I have a heart condition!" He laid a hand on his upholstered chest and thumped lightly, as if any greater exertion would halt what worked within.
"Central Medical supervises the Exercise Booths, you know that. It won't let the EB put more strain on your body than it can stand. Don't be so arsky-believe me, you'll feel a lot better."
"But I do not wish to exercise. I will admit that I am less fit than, ah; you, for example-"
"You're Fifteen centimeters shorter and ten kilos heavier."
"Be that as it may, I like it this way."
"Ogden, dear-"
"Don't Ogden dear me!" he snapped, his voice breaking and shrilling like a steam whistle. "This is tyranny; this is an unwarrantable intrusion into my personal life. I will not stand for it!"
"Ogden, anything can happen, and your survival might depend on your fitness. Besides, when we reach Canopus, the descent could kill you. Can't you see-"
"No!" Anger's blush marred the marble of his skin. "And this go-to-work nonsense, that is exactly the same sort of intrusion. I react to it in exactly the same way. You have no business attempting to coerce me into sweating in the boiler room-"
"Ogden, be reasonab-"
"No!" His shout drew bleary puzzlement from the drinkers. "You have an atavistic desire to see everyone productive and unhappy! This is unnecessary! The ship can provide us with everything we need; our labor is not only extraneous, it is useless. We can do nothing as well or as quickly as the ship can."
"Nothing?" With a secret smile she let a hand fall to her belly. "Ogden, be quiet for a minute. The ship is functioning perfectly right now, but who can tell what will happen? An asteroid could hit us, a connection could break . . . if we don't know how to do it ourselves, it won't get done. So we are going to know how. And we are going to remain physically fit so that each of us can land and still live to be a hundred twenty. Anyone who decides he won't is going to find himself in very hot water. Do you understand me?"
"I hear you," he conceded, "but I question your authority. I question your right to disrupt my private life. It's not constitutional."
"Central Computer," she called.
"Yes, Madame President?"
"Mr. Dunn will neither eat nor drink until such time as he reports to the EB, the classroom, and his duty station. Also, his suite is to be closed off to him. Acknowledge."
"Done."
"Thank you." She smiled down at Dunn, not even minding if he broadcast his resentment-because as long as he interacted with more than his desk and his dinner table, he'd strengthen the society. Sometimes a leader can deepen unity just by presenting herself as a target. "There is my authority."
He smiled right back. "Central Computer-if a majority of the residents of any given Level reject the authority of the President, will you enforce her orders?"
To Ioanni's dismay, the answer was, "No. Not on that Level."
"Are there," continued Dunn, with that same cold smile, "any vacant Levels?"
"All those above 251."
"Register me in 271-NW-A-1."
"Done."
The little man laughed in her face, in her shock. "So there, Sal. I've seceded. Now enforce your silly laws."
At that moment, the lights went out, and gravity failed.

Listen, when I said stop everything and lemme think, I didn't mean you, heart, or you either, lungs-get back to work. Liver, kidneys, spleen-you, too. Quit loafing. Just the mouth and hands I meant, really-how can I think when you're stuffing yourself? Okay, let's take stock.