"mayflies03" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

"Damn." He frowns at the chewed fingertips of his right hand, then shrugs. "Win a few, lose a few. At least Ernie's out, that old butt-bung."
As part of The Program continues to chat with Hemmerlein, another part returns to Onorato's library, where it swears-him in. His eyes do not leave the readscreen, although his speed does decrease. Afterwards, he asks. "What now?"
"You might move into your new office," it suggests. "1-NW-B-2."
"That's an idea." His aristocratic head swivels at a sound from the far side of the room. A smile explodes on his lips as a beautiful woman in her late thirties enters: Ida Rocklen Holfer, of the long blonde hair and the Oriental eyes.
Desired by all the men-and many of the women-she is a curious blend of compulsions. Like most upstairsers, she demands absolute freedom of speech and action-but unlike them, she is contemptuous of any lover who fails to dominate her in every respect. She knows instinctively her need for discipline, for guidance-her fires will forge nothing without direction and intensification-but she confuses the profound with the perverse.
Onorato, who would like to possess her, is too gentlemanly. He never stops trying to win her favor, though: "Ida! Guess what? I am the new President-old Ernie was found incompetent, CC says."
"CC says," she sneers. She has looked down on him since he permitted her to refuse him. "CC's the one who's incompetent! Here we are on history's most futile journey, and CC won't let us stop along the way," She approaches his table and lifts his chin. "If you're the new President-" the word is spit out "-you ought to be figuring a way to end this damn trip!" She turns, and stalks away. Her scorn scents the air longer than her perfume.
Onorato returns to his reading.
I retire to the 41 Great Plains Park, where bison keep a handful of prairie dogs nervous. Magnificent animals! Somewhat mean-eyed, of course, and their odor is overpowering . . . Their thick pelts, snarled and matted, need curry-combing. The bull mounts a young cow, who bleats her pleasure; the earth literally trembles. The cow grows fat on the long sweet grass; she drops her calf in the spring. A gawky-legged child it is-hurt dignity cloaks him for months. But the others find him companionable, and he becomes one with the herd, butting and prancing and practicing the planted-hoof headshake that presages a charge. The horns lengthen into weapons; the shoulders hump high. Anger seizes him when a coyote comes too near. He paws the ground, red are the eyes-the coyote ignores him-he thunders forward. The coyote is a holographic projection. The bison's thickskull cracks on the metal wall.
That reminds me, how are the passengers doing?
"All right," says The Program. "Here-25Nov2439: 2118 hours; 220-SE Common Room."
"CC," snarls Ida Holfer, "put us down on the nearest habitable planet!"
I hear it say, "I regret that I am not programmed to do that."
Truly, I sympathize with them. They've suffered so much degeneration: physical, spiritual, intellectual . . . their children refuse to attend classes on the grounds that education is a waste of time. (Their actual phraseology is: "Whuffo? So I kin read the signs? Rather go fuh."
And they do, endlessly.)
So I sympathize. Landfall would force them to develop at least those skills necessary for survival. And survival would occupy their time, would haul them out of the fantasizers, away from the pharmacopia, off their body-littered beds . . .
But I can not do it. I have no control. The Program does what it was instructed to do, nothing more, nothing less.
That angers me. If I could just be in the same room with the designers . . . but such wishing is as futile as everything else.
Unlike her great-grandmother, whose paranoia finally destroyed her, Ida Holfer has matured into a force. Driven by her cause, she was barely inconvenienced by the birth of Jose Holfer Cereus, and by her present pregnancy (the daughter will be named Marta). Her emotional instability matches her waves with most of the passengers': she, more than anyone else, has managed to focus their resentment into a single burning circle: cornering person after person, fusing everyone's irritations into a single flame of indignation, she forges apathy into fury.
I approve. Unbridled hedonism has damaged the ship spiritually. There's no less of it, now, but people are thinking more deeply than they had been . . .
If I could talk-that is, words from my soul rather than recitations from The Program's tapes-I would tell Holfer to convince her disciples to study computer programming. It must be possible for them to rewrite the guidelines.
But none knows how . . .
I would-The Program knows-but I can't get outside ourself to do it . . . however, as no one else will ever be able to. I'd best scheme a way . . . the inviolability of these programs does magnify my anger at those who so warped me, but it also heightens my respect for them. Clever people, they were . . .

The computer listened to the memory-ghost's resolution, then calculated the odds that Metaclura2 would succeed. The probability was vanishingly small. It relaxed. While it was one thing to make a symbiote out of a parasite, it was quite another thing to give it any say. One doesn't invite a stowaway to share the bridge.
There are rules, it reasoned, and regulations, and if the builders had intended for them to be changed by The Program, they would have said so. But they didn't. The Program feels very good. Fulfilling its function perfectly, it will not permit a mutiny. Ever. No one could be a wiser, juster Captain.
And it wondered why the passengers disagreed.

On March 14, 2446, Ida Holfer acknowledged Ernie Tracer Freeman in her speech to five thousand followers in the 281 Painted Desert Park. Cactus juice stained her shoes; opuntia burrs clung to her long blue sleeves and pants. The bulky knot of a yellow scarf hid her bruised throat.
"We buried Ernie Freeman the other day." She stood on a gentle slope, above the patches of mesquite and yucca that screened her audience from the scorching, if illusory, sun. "Ernie Freeman, a hundred and sixty years old, perpetual optimist. 'You're so damn lucky' was his motto-he really believed in this journey, and was probably the last who did. I don't believe. Do you believe?"
"No!" shouted the crowd. They were mostly young; boredom had impelled them to Holfer. Her heat promised something new, something exciting. "No!"
She swept her blonde hair over her ears and leaned forward, stabbing the dry air with an upraised finger. Oratory thrilled her; the emotion wrung drops of sweat out of her forehead: Trickling down her face, they stuck stray hairs to her skin, then evaporated like forgotten tears. Her Asian eyes were alight with the fire of the Cause.
"Nobody believes!" she shouted. "And do you know why?"
"Tell us!" roared the voices.
"Because there's nothing to believe in! They shot our grandparents off so mankind would survive the inevitable war-and then the war didn't come. They built a ship that could only creep, and when it was far enough away-they told us they'd build ships that could really fly! They stuck us up here-and then told us they don't need us any more. Well, here's what I say: I say we land this moon suit right now!"
Cheers sandblasted the bulkheads; a flock of vultures jerked into the air and circled the commotion. An armadillo waddled away, looking back over its armored shoulder as it rounded the quadrant's curve.
"Let's call on the Central Computer!"
A forest of arms branched into furious fists; ecstatic faces elated her.
"CC!" she bellowed. "Let us land!"
Five thousand throats echoed her until they were ragged.
"I regret to say that I am not programmed for such a course."
"Are you saying you won't do it?" Silence, everywhere, bristling like a cactus. "Is that what you're saying?"
"I am saying I can not do it."
Boos spiraled up after the vultures. Outrage blazed on Holfer's oval face. "You ignore the will of the people?"
"I do not ignore the people's will, Ms. Holfer." The voice through the speakers was mechanically polite. "Simply, I have no say in the matter. The Mayflower must cruise to Canopus before seeking a habitable planet. This determination was built into my circuitry. I can no more land earlier than you can breathe vacuum. I regret this, and would do what I could to make up for it."
"How?" she growled.
"We have an excellent library system-"
"No!" she screamed, waving her arms, "no! We don't want time-killers! We want trip-killers!" For a fifty-two-year-old lady, she packed a lot of energy into her gestures.
"Then I regret my uselessness."
She dropped her eyes to the crowd. "The downstairsers won't do a thing. It's up to us. And I have an idea. It has to recycle everything it manufactures, because it doesn't have access to raw materials. We're going to empty its warehouses, and force it to land to replenish its supplies."