"Mack Reynolds - Ability Quotient" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

until we're sure about him."

"Very well. Possibly you are correct."

Bert Alshuler took an express elevator from the fiftieth floor of the
high-rise building that housed the administration offices, including that
of Professor Leonard Katz, to the ground floor and strode through the
masses of milling students and instructors out onto the campus.

He muttered skeptically, "Beyond my dreams of avarice."

He would have taken on the offer at the original price, that is, double
the Guaranteed Annual Income that was the right of every citizen of the
United States of the Americas. He had asked for triple just to see what
Katz reply would be and had expected to be refused. Surely, no matter how
high his Ability Quotient, as the professor had called it, there must be
scores of others who had placed approximately as high. But evidently they
had wanted him, and fairly badly. The professor hadn't hesitated at all. He
wondered now what the other's response would have been if he had
demanded even more. He might keep it in mind, if he decided to remain
on a second semester or more—but what had that been about his not
being on a semester basis?

He lit out across the campus to one of the auto-cafes which he found
almost deserted at this early time of the day. However, Jim Hawkins was
seated at a corner table where they usually met.

When Bert came up, Jim said, "Scram. I'm waiting for a girl."

"So am I," Bert said, taking a chair across from the other. "So far, the
right one hasn't come along, old buddy." He began fishing his Identity
Card from his pocket.

Jim said, "This is the right one, but I saw her first. Scram."
 "What's this scram thing?"

"Go away."

Bert put the card in the table slot and said, "How about a beer? I'm
springing." He said into the screen, "Two large glasses of beer."

His old time army buddy said, "You've got a lot to learn, freshman.
When you're living the student life on Guaranteed Annual Income, you
can't go around buying beers for people this early in the day. By the end of
the month you'll be starving."

The table top dipped and rose again with two chilled glasses of beer.
They reached out for them.

"Mother's milk," Jim said appreciatively. "You all signed up?"