"Pohl, Frederik - Spending a Day at the Lottery Fair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

"He says one can learn much, Mrs. Millay translated, "from what foreign
countries can do. Even America.
Millicent, glancing at the expression on her husband's face, said brightly:
"Well! Let's not let this day go to waste. What shall we do next? At once she
got the same answers from the children: "Old cars! "Animals! "No, whined Baby
Louisa, "I wanna see the stiffs!
Mr. Katsubishi whispered something in staccato Japanese to Mrs. Miilay, who
turned hesitantly to Millieent Baxter. "One doesn't wish to intrude, she said,
"but if you are in fact going to see the Hall of Life and Death as your daughter
suggests. . . well, we don't seem to be able to find the rest of our tour group,
you see, and we would like to go there. After all, it is the theme center for
the entire fair, as you might say-
"Why, of course, said Millicent warmly. "We'd be real delighted to have the
company of you and Mr. Kats- Kats--
"Katsubishi, he supplied, bowing deeply and showing all his teeth in a smile,
and they all seven set off for the Hall of Life and Death, with little Louisa
delightedly leading the way.
The hall was a low, white marble structure across the greensward from the
Cenotaph, happy picnicking families on the green, gay pavilions all around, ice
cream vendors chanting along the roadways, and a circus parade, horses and a
giraffe and even an elephant, winding along the main avenue with a band leading
them, diddley-boom, diddley-boom, diddley-bang! bang! bang!-all noise, and
color, and excitement. But as soon as they were within the Hall they were in
another world. The Hall of Life and Death was the only free exhibit at the
fair-even the rest rooms were not free. The crowds that moved through the Hall
were huge. But they were also reverential. As you came in you found yourself in
a great, domed entrance pavilion, almost bare except for seventy-five raised
platforms, each spotlighted from a concealed source, each surrounded by an air
curtain of gentle drafts. At the time the Baxters came in more than sixty of
them were already occupied with the silent, lifeless forms of those who had
passed on at the Fair that day. A sweet-faced child here, an elderly woman
there, there, side by side, a young pair of newlyweds. Randolph Baxter looked
for and found the tall, smiling black man who had died in the line before him.
He was smiling no longer, but his face was in repose and almost joyous, it
seemed. "He's at peace now, Millicent whispered, touching her husband's arm, and
he nodded. He didn't want to speak out loud in this solemn hall, where the
whisper of organ music was barely audible above the gentle hiss of chilled air
curtains that wafted past every deceased. Hardly anyone in the great crowd
spoke. The visitors lingered at each of the occupied biers; but then, as they
moved toward the back of the chamber, they didn't linger. Some didn't even look,
for every tourist at the Fair could not help thinking, as he passed an empty
platform, that before the Fair closed that night it would be occupied.. . by
someone.
But the Rotunda of Those Who Have Gone Before was only the anteroom to the many
inspiring displays the Hall had to offer. Even the children were fascinated.
Young Simon stood entranced before the great Timepiece of Living and Dying,
watching the hands revolve swiftly to show how many were born and how many died
in each minute, with the bottom line always showing a few more persons alive in
every minute despite everything the government and the efforts of patriotic
citizens could do-but he was more interested, really, in the mechanism of the