"John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

"Come on, let's get up," someone said. It was a woman in blue, who reached over and helped the
naked woman out of the tank, to stand dripping, swaying, leaning on a strong shoulder with a hand
holding her firmly around the waist. She wanted to go back to sleep.
"Is she ready?"
"I think so." There was a second person, a man, also dressed in blue. "This won't take long."
She knew they were talking about her. She tried to shake the hand off, but she was too weak. It
annoyed her, hearing them talk. She wanted them to stop.
"Leave me alone," she said.
"What did she say?"
They were leading her down the hall, helping her step up through the doorways, dogging them behind
her. She couldn't hold her head up; it kept falling to the side. All she could see was her bare feet, her
legs, and wetness dripping from her body onto the carpet. It struck her as funny; she laughed, nearly
slipping from the woman's arms.
"What's the matter with her?"
She didn't hear the reply, she was laughing so hard. There was another door. They stopped in front of
it and she became aware of someone slapping her face. She tried to make him stop but he wouldn't
and she started to cry. Then a harder slap that rocked her back against the far wall. She recoiled,
realized that she was standing on her own and looking into the man's face.
"Are you awake now?" He peered into her eyes.
"Yes... I..." She coughed, and tried to look around her, but he kept pulling her head back until she
thought she would cry again. "I... that is..."
"She's all right. Take her in."
The man again. "You follow me, you hear? Just follow me."
She nodded. He seemed to think it was very important and she was willing to do anything if he'd let
go of her head. But she was all wet, her hair was all over the place, and she felt clammy. She tried to
tell him that, but he had already gone into the room. She felt a shove on her shoulder, and staggered
over the lip of the door.
She got a glimpse of the people sitting in the room. There was a man in a funny coat who tickled her
memory. She knew him, but couldn't remember the name. And there was a woman in a chair. She
knew that one. It was herself.


I never thought I'd meet ex-President Tweed face to face. You can't avoid him on the cube; he's there
all the time on one program or another, pushing his crazy schemes. He'd been a fixture on the

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The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley

telepolitical scene since the time I was born.
Tweed dressed like a political cartoon from the turn of the twentieth century. He had allowed himself
to develop a paunch, always wore striped pants and a clawhammer coat, top hat, and spats. He
smoked a cigar, and when elected, called the Presidential Warren "Tammany Hall." And he won
elections. Though I never followed it closely, I knew he had been elected to three consecutive terms.
He paved the way for the current Lunar clown show we call government. Recognition is all, and the
public had shown a perhaps understandable confusion between political rhetoric and the fantasies
that surround it on the cube. So now we have our Tweeds, our Churchills, and our Kennedys. There
is a Hitler, a Bonforte, a Lewiston, and a Trajan. Put them all in the same place and you might as
well call it a circus.
Luckily, elected officials don't do that much any more; the posts are largely ceremonial or