"Asimov, Isaac - Profession" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

For most of the first eighteen years of his life, George Platen had headed firmly in one direction, that of Registered Computer Programmer. There were those in his crowd who spoke wisely of Spationautics, Refrigeration Technology, Transportation Control, and even Administration. But George held firm.
He argued relative merits as vigorously as any of them, and why not? Education Day loomed ahead of them and was the great fact of their existence. It approached steadily, as fixed and certain as the calendarЧ the first day of November of the year following oneТs eighteenth birthday.
After that day, there were other topics of conversation. One could discuss with others some detail of the profession, or the virtues of oneТs wife and children, or the fate of oneТs space-polo team, or oneТs experience in the Olympics. Before Education Day, however, there was only one topic that
unfailingly and unwearyingly held everyoneТs interest, and that was Education Day.
УWhat are you going for? Think youТll make it? Heck, thatТs no good. Look at the records; quotaТs been cut. Logistics nowЧФ
Or Hypermechanics nowЧ Or Communications nowЧ Or Gravitics nowЧ Especially Gravitics at the moment. Everyone had been talking about Gravitics in the few years just before GeorgeТs Education Day because of the development of the Gravitic power engine.
Any world within ten light-years of a dwarf star, everyone said, would give its eyeteeth for any kind of Registered Gravitics Engineer.
The thought of that never bothered George. Sure it would; all the eyeteeth it could scare up. But George had also heard what had happened before in a newly developed technique. Rationalization and simplification followed in a flood. New models each year; new types of gravitic engines; new principles. Then all those eyeteeth gentlemen would find themselves Out of date and superseded by later models with later educations. The first group would then have to settle down to unskilled labor or ship out to some backwoods world that wasnТt quite caught up yet.
Now Computer Programmers were in steady demand year after year, century after century. The demand never reached wild peaks; there was never a howling bull market for Programmers; but the demand climbed steadily as new worlds opened up and as older worlds grew more complex.
He had argued with Stubby Trevelyan about that constantly. As best friends, their arguments had to be constant and vitriolic and, of course, neither ever persuaded or was persuaded.
But then Trevelyan had had a father who was a Registered Metallurgist and had actually served on one of the Outworlds, and a grandfather who had also been a Registered Metallurgist. He himself was intent on becoming a Registered Metallurgist almost as a matter of family right and was firmly convinced that any other profession was a shadeless than respectable.
УThereТll always be metal,Ф he said, Уand thereТs an accomplishment in molding alloys to specification and watching structures grow. Now whatТs a Programmer going to be doing. Sitting at a coder all day long, feeding some fool mile-long machine.Ф
Even at sixteen, George had learned to be practical. He said simply, УThereТll be a million Metallurgists put out along with you.Ф
УBecause itТs good. A good profession. The best.Ф
УBut you get crowded out, Stubby. You can be way back in line. Any world can tape out its own Metallurgists, and the market for advanced Earth models isnТt so big. And itТs mostly the small worlds that want them. You know what percent of the turnout of Registered Metallurgists get tabbed for worlds with a Grade A rating. I looked it up. ItТs just 13.3 percent. That means youТll have seven chances in eight of being stuck in some world that
just about has running water. You may even be stuck on Earth; 2.3 percent are.Ф
Trevelyan said beffigerently, УThereТs no disgrace in staying on Earth. Earth needs technicians, too. Good ones.Ф His grandfather had been an Earth-bound Metallurgist, and Trevelyan lifted his finger to his upper lip and dabbed at an as yet nonexistent mustache.
George knew about TrevelyanТs grandfather and, considering the Earthbound position of his own ancestry, was in no mood to sneer. He said diplomatically, УNo intellectual disgrace. Of course not. But itТs nice to get into a Grade A world, isnТt it?
УNow you take Programmers. Only the Grade A worlds have the kind of computers that really need first-class Programmers so theyТre the only ones in the market. And Programmer tapes are complicated and hardly any one fits. They need more Programmers than their own population can supply. ItТs just a matter of statistics. ThereТs one first-class Programmer per million, say. A world needs twenty and has a population often million, they have to come to Earth for five to fifteen Programmers. Right?
УAnd you know how many Registered Computer Programmers went to Grade A planets last year? IТll tell you. Every last one. If youТre a Programmer, youТre a picked man. Yes, sir.Ф
Trevelyan frowned. УIf only one in a million makes it, what makes you think youТll make it?Ф
George said guardedly, УIТll make it.Ф
He never dared tell anyone; not Trevelyan; not his parents; of exactly what he was doing that made him so confident. But he wasnТt worried. He was simply confident (that was the worst of the memories he had in the hopeless days afterward). He was as blandly confident as the average eight-year-old kid approaching Reading DayЧthat childhood preview of Education Day.

Of course, Reading Day had been different. Partly, there was the simple fact of childhood. A boy of eight takes many extraordinary things in stride. One day you canТt read and the next day you can. ThatТs just the way things are. Like the sun shining.
And then not so much depended upon it. There were no recruiters just ahead, waiting and jostling for the lists and scores on the coming Olympics. A boy or girl who goes through the Reading Day is just someone who has ten more years of undifferentiated living upon EarthТs crawling surface; just someone who returns to his family with one new ability.
By the time Education Day caine, ten years later, George wasnТt even sure of most of the details of his own Reading Day.

ХMost clearly of all, he remembered it to be a dismal September day with a mild rain falling. (September for Reading Day; November for Education

Day; May for Olympics. They made nursery rhymes out of it.) George had
dressed by the wall lights, with his parents far more excited than he himself was. His father was a Registered Pipe Fitter and had found his occupation on earth. This fact had always been a humiliation to him, although, of course, as anyone could see plainly, most of each generation must stay on Earth in the nature of things.
There had to be farmers and miners and even technicians on Earth. It was only the late-model, high-specialty professions that were in demand on the Outworlds, and only a few millions a year out of EarthТs eight billion population could be exported. Every man and woman on Earth couldnТt be among that group.
But every man and woman could hope that at least one of his children could be one, and Platen, Senior, was certainly no exception. It was obvious to him (and, to be sure, to others as well) that George was notably intelligent and quick-minded. He would be bound to do well and he would have to, as he was an only child. If George didnТt end on an Outworld, they would have to wait for grandchildren before a next chance would come along, and that was too far in the future to be much consolation.
Reading Day would not prove much, of course, but it would be the only indication they would have before the big day itself. Every parent on Earth would be listening to the quality of reading when his child came home with it; listening for any particularly easy flow of words and building that into certain omens of the future. There were few families that didnТt have at least one hopeful who, from Reading Day on, was the great hope because of the way he handled his trisyllabics.
Dimly, George was aware of the cause of his parentsТ tension, and if there was any anxiety in his young heart that drizzly morning, it was only the fear that his fatherТs hopeful expression might fade out when he returned home with his reading.
The children met in the large assembly room of the townТs Education hall. All over Earth, in millions of local halls, throughout that month, similar groups of children would be meeting. George felt depressed by the grayness of the room and by the other children, strained and stiff in unaccustomed finery.
Automatically, George did as all the rest of the children did. He found the small clique that represented the children on his floor of the apartment house and joined them.
Trevelyan, who lived immediately next door, still wore his hair childishly long and was years removed from the sideburns and thin, reddish mustache that he was to grow as soon as he was physiologically capable of
it.
Trevelyan (to whom George was then known as Jaw-joe) said, УBet youТre scared.Ф
УI am not,Ф said George. Then, confidentially, УMy folks got a hunk of printing up on the dresser in my room, and when! come home, IТm going to read it for them.Ф (GeorgeТs main suffering at the moment lay in the fact
that he didnТt quite know where to put his hands. He had been warned not to scratch his head or rub his ears or pick his nose or put his hands into his pockets. This eliminated almost every possibility.)
Trevelyan put his hands in his pockets and said, УMy father isnТt worried.Ф
Trevelyan, Senior, had been a Metallurgist on Diporia for nearly seven years, which gave him a superior social status in his neighborhood even though he had retired and returned to Earth.
Earth discouraged these re-immigrants because of population problems, but a small trickle did return. For one thing the cost of living was lower on Earth, and what was a trifling annuity on Diporia, say, was a comfortable income on Earth. Besides, there were always men who found more satisfaction in displaying their success before the friends and scenes of their childhood than before all the rest of the Universe besides.
Trevelyan, Senior, further explained that if he stayed on Diporia, so would his children, and Diporia was a one-spaceship world. Back on Earth, his kids could end anywhere, even Novia.
Stubby Trevelyan had picked up that item early. Even before Reading Day, his conversation was based on the carelessly assumed fact that his ultimate home would be in Novia.
George, oppressed by thoughts of the otherТs future greatness and his own small-time contrast, was driven to beffigerent defense at once.