"H. Beam Piper & J. J. McGuire - Null-ABC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

"What?" he asked. "Oh, Jimmy showed me how theirs works. Mr. Hartnett got one like it a week ago."
He motioned to Olaf, setting the 'copter down again. "Come here; I'll show you."

The suspicion, and the horror passed in a wave of relief.

"You think you and Olaf, between you, can get that thing to school?" he asked.

"Sure! Easy!"

"All right. You show Olaf how to run it. Olaf, as soon as you've dropped Ray at school, take that thing to
the Rolls-Cadipac agency, and get a new one, with a proper instrument board, and a proper picture
book of operating instructions. I'm going to call Sam Huschack up personally and give him royal hell
about this. Sure you can handle it, now?"

He watched the 'copter rise to the two thousand foot local traffic level and turn in the direction of
Mineola High School, fifty miles away. He was still looking anxiously after it as it dwindled to a tiny dot
and vanished.

"They'll make it all right," Claire told him. "Olaf has a strong back, and Ray has a good head."

"It wasn't that that I was worried about." He turned and looked, half ashamed, at his daughter. "You
know, for a minute, there, I thought ... I thought Ray could read!"

"Father!" She was so shocked that she forgot the nickname they had given him when he had announced
his candidacy for Senate, in the spring. "You didn't!"

"I know; it's an awful thing to think, but—Well, the kids today do the craziest things. There's that Hartnett
boy he runs around with; Tom Hartnett bought Literate training for him. And that fellow Prestonby; I
don't trust him—"

"Prestonby?" Claire asked, puzzled.

"Oh, you know. The principal at school. You've met him."

Claire wrinkled her brow—just like her mother, when she was trying to remember something.

"Oh, yes. I met him at that P.T.A. meeting. He didn't impress me as being much like a teacher, but I
suppose they think anything's good enough for us Illiterates."
Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby remained standing by the lectern, looking out over the crowded
auditorium, still pleasantly surprised to estimate the day's attendance at something like ninety-seven per
cent of enrollment. That was really good; why, it was only three per cent short of perfect! Maybe it was
the new rule requiring a sound-recorded excuse for absence. Or it could have been his propaganda
campaign about the benefits of education. Or, very easily, it could have been the result of sending Doug
Yetsko and some of his boys around to talk to recalcitrant parents. It was good to see that that was
having some effect beside an increase in the number of attempts on his life, or the flood of complaints to
the Board of Education. Well, Lancedale had gotten Education merged with his Office of
Communications, and Lancedale was back of him to the limit, so the complaints had died out on the
empty air. And Doug Yetsko was his bodyguard, so most of the would-be assassins had died, also.