"Bruce Holland Rogers - Lifeboat On A Burning Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

He didn't mention the licensing fee his family was charging us for the exclusive
use of his image, any more than Bierley himself would have mentioned it.

"Are the Bierleys funding this project?"

"I know a billion sounds like a lot of money, but when it's divided up among as
many heirs as I have . . ." He paused, letting the laughter die. "No. They are
not. This project is more expensive than you can imagine. In the long run, it's
going to take moon-shot money to get eternity up and running."

"And where's that money going to come from, now that your federal funds have
been cut off?"

"Well, I can't really say much about that. But I'll tell you that it will be
much easier for me to learn Japanese or Malay as a construct than it would have
been for the real Jackson Bierley." He smiled, but there was a brief tremor to
the smile, and it didn't take a genius to see that Jackson Bierley, personality
construct or not, was one American who didn't want to hand yet another
technological advantage across the Pacific.

"In these times, it's understandable that the American taxpayer wants his money
spent on hiring police," Bierley went on. "Why think about eternal life when
you're worried about getting home from work alive? It's too bad that both can't
be a priority. Of course, with the appropriate hardware attached, a machine like
TOS could be one hell of a security system -- a very smart guard who never
sleeps." As if a TOS system could one day be in everyone's home.

Richardson and I stepped to the podium then, and for once I was happy to have no
public speaking skills. The Bierley construct jumped in with damage control
whenever I was about to say something I shouldn't. He made jokes when Richardson
dryly admitted that in all honesty, the construct was closer to a collaborative
oil painting than it was to the real Jackson Bierley. Of the three of us up on
the platform, the one who seemed warmest, funniest, most human, was the one
inside the video screen.

After the conference, we got calls from the Secretary of Commerce, the Speaker
of the House, and both the Majority and Minority Leaders in the Senate. Even
though they were falling all over themselves to offer support for funding,
Richardson and I knew we could still screw it up, so we mostly listened in while
the Bierley construct handled the calls.

It was Richardson who had pulled our fat out of the fire, but even I was caught
up in the illusion. I felt grateful to Bierley. * * *

Once we'd restored our funding, I expected things to return to normal. I thought
Richardson would be eager to get back to work, but he wouldn't schedule meetings
with me. Day after day, he hid out in his office to tie up what he said were
"loose ends."