"Robert F. Young - To Touch a Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

his freedom. The reason long-run pilots were impotentialized was that the runs sometimes lasted as long
as four years and a man who did not want a woman could live alone for longer periods of time than one
who did.
The proposition was a standard one and had been put to innumerable lifers before Powers—this was
the only way the carriers could obtain long-run pilots. None of the lifers had refused. Powers hadn't
refused either. A little bit of freedom was better than none.
He had been sent directly to Sublime. There the techs at Salt Peter's Cathedral had briefed him on
ChiMuZeta in accordance with the law and had given him the Treatment. It had required exactly one long
run—a relatively short one—for Powers to discover that the Treatment hadn't taken. At first, naturally
enough, he had assumed that it had had no effect upon him at all and he had rejoiced in the thought that
he had cheated both the penal colony and the Company. Then, in a mirrored room in an orbital brothel
off Twilight he had discovered that he had cheated no one except himself.

2. A t first the ancients knew only that ChiMuZeta came from the star X-10-D, that exposure
to it for the duration of a single Orbit at a mean altitude of 14,021,636.2 miles (or the equivalent
thereof) resulted in impotence and that exposure for the duration of two orbits at the same mean
altitude (or the equivalent thereof) resulted in restoration of virility. They would not even have
known this much had not one of them, apparently by accident, made an orbit at this altitude and
had not another of them, years later under a galactic government grant and in company with a
female of the species, made two . . .

SUPPER was at seven. Mary served it. As was her custom, she sat across the table from him and
kept him company while he ate. Tonight she had served roast leg of lamb, baked sweet potato, diced
carrots, mint jelly and hot buttered rolls—all synthetics, of course, but extremely tasty.
Powers asked for a second helping of mint jelly and Mary; clearly pleased, spooned him out a
generous one. He enjoyed the meal immensely, as he did all her meals. They were a far cry from the fare
he'd been accustomed to on Crag and an even farther one from the fare he'd known in the Our Mother
of Moses Orphanage on Sinai where he'd spent the first sixteen years of his life. The Our Mother of
Moses Orphanage, though, hadn't been responsible for its meager fare. Sinai was a barren planet and
had to import all its foodstuffs, and practical considerations, such as money, posed severe limitations on
what could be imported.
But while Powers couldn't blame Our Mother of Moses for the skimpiness of her meals, he
could—and did—blame her for abysmal ignorance he had been kept in during the early part of his life. It
wasn't till after he left the place behind him and worked his way to Lebanon on a food freighter that he
found out what was wrong with him. Fortunately Lebanon, even in those days, had been an enlightened
planet and he'd had no trouble getting the wrongness set right.
"Come on," Mary said, sweeping the remnants of the meal into the dissolver. "Let's play checkers."
He followed her out of the little galley and down the corridor to the lounge. The lounge was small and
compact, and contained among other things a little round table with two chairs. A checkerboard lay on
the table, a stack of red checkers on one side of it and a stack of black ones on the other.
They sat down. Mary placed the checkers on their proper squares and explained the rules of the
game to him. Powers made the first move.
She won the first game—he, the second. He knew, of course, that she had let him win. But he caught
on swiftly, began to plan three, sometimes four moves ahead. Mary of course could plan any number of
moves ahead but this posed a challenge and served to make the game all the more intriguing.
For some reason his mind was unusually keen tonight. As he continued to play it grew keener yet and
he found himself looking six moves, ahead. Nine. Finally, when they stood at ten games apiece, the
following pattern appeared upon the board. All of the men were kinged, and it was Powers' turn:
 The sharpness of Powers' mind was now such that he could see simultaneously every possible move
he could make, every possible move Mary could make, the subsequent patterns that would emerge and