"Alfred Bester - Galatea Galante" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)

"Ridiculous."
"She's hideous."
"Are you mad? She's beautiful. Pure. Majestic. And a hell of a lot brighter than your Remedial Table Mnnis bums 7, at Syrtus University."
"But she can't talk. She only grunts."
"Talk? Talk? For God's sake. Charles! That damn red Popsy was poured out talking sixteen to the dozen. We can't shut her up. She's filling the house with enough of her jabber as it is. Be grateful for some silence."
So Claudia, the black mountain gorilla, moved into the Manwright menage, and Igor was furiously jealous.
The first morning that Claudia joined Manwright and Corque at breakfast (while Igor glowered at his massive rival), she printed a message on a pad and handed it to the
Dominie: R DD YU GV G TLT TRG IN YR PRGRM?,
"Let's see if I remember your abbreviations, darling. Did you . . . that's me . . . give Galatea . . . yes, toilet training


in your program? My God, Claudia! I gave her the best of 47 women. Surely at least one of them must have been toilet trained."
BY DPRS
"By what, Claudia?"
"Buy diapers, Reg."
"Oh. Ali. Of course. Thank you, Charles. Thank you, Claudia. More coffee, love? It's frustrating, Charles. Muscular dyspraxia again. Claudia can manage caps in her writing but she can't hack lower case. How many diapers, Claudia?"
1 DZ
"Right. One doz. Zu Befehl. Did you bring your kids to play with the baby?"
TO OD
"Too odd for what?"
TOO OLD
"Your kids?"
G
"What? Galatea? Too old for your boys? And still in diapers? I'd best see for myself."
One of the top-floor bedrooms had been converted into a nursery. The usual biodroid cellar accommodations weren't good enough for Manwright's magnum opus. When the Dominic entered with Claudia, the red infant was on the floor, flat on her belly, propped on a pillow, and deep in a book. She looked up and crawled enthusiastically to Claudia.
"Nanny dear, I've found the answer, the old linear shorthand. Just slashes, dots, and dashes, and you won't have to worry your hand and head over cursive abbreviations. It's a simple style, and we can practice together." She climbed up on Claudia and kissed her lovingly. "One would think this might have occurred to that egotistical know-it-all whose
name escapes me." The infant turned her auburn head. "Why, good morning, Dominic Manwright. What an unpleasant surprise."
"You're right, Claudia," Manwright growled. "She's too damned old for your kids. Diaper her."
"My sphincter will be under control by tomorrow, Dominie," Galatea said sweetly. "Can you say the same for your tongue?"
"Guh!" And Manwright withdrew with what he hoped was impressive dignity.
Of course, she shot up like a young bamboo plant and filled the house with joy as she entertained them with her escapades. She taught herself to play Manwright's Regency harpsichord, which was sadly out of repair. She convinced Igor that it was a monster in the making, and together they refinished and tuned it. The sound of concert-A on the tuning fork droned through the house with agonizing penetration. The others were forced to eat out because she gave Igor no time for cooking.
She studied linear shorthand with Claudia and then translated it into finger language. They had glorious raps, silently talking to each other until Manwright banned the constant finger waggling, which he denounced as a damned invasion of vision. They simply held hands and talked into each other's palm in their secret code, and Manwright was too proud to ask what they were gossiping about.
"As if I'd get an answer anyway," he growled to Corque.
"D'you think that's her mystery surprise, Reg?"
"Damned if I know. She's unexpected enough as it is. Rotten kid!"
She stole liquid licorice from Igor's sacred pantry and tarred herself; phosphorous from Manwright's sacred laboratory and irradiated herself. She burst into Corque's dark bedroom at three in the morning, howling, "ME


METHOPHYTE MOTHER FROM GANNYMEEDY!
YOU KILL ALL MY CHILDERS, ALIEN INVADER FROM OUTSIDE SPACE! NOW ME KILL YOU!"
Corque let out a yell and then couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the day. "The beautiful shock of the apparition, Reg!" Manwright didn't think it was funny.
"That damned child is giving me real nightmares," he complained. "I keep dreaming that I'm lost in the Grand Teton mountains and Red Indians are chasing me."
She sneaked up into the sacred penthouse and decorated the robotlike neutrinoscope with items stolen from Manwright's wardrobe. The construct assumed a ludicrous resemblance to the Dominie himself.
The innocent child fast-talked E & A Chemical delivery"My Daddy forgot to order it. So absent-minded, you know"-into an extra gallon of ethyl alcohol which she poured into the marble pool and got the piranhas disgustingly drunk. Then she jumped in and was discovered floating with her plastered pals.
"Doesn't know the meaning of fear, Reg."
"Pah! Just the Passionaria I programmed."
She stole two hundred meters of magnetic tape from the library and fashioned a scarecrow mobile. The gardener was enraptured. Manwright was infuriated, particularly because art-dealer friends offered huge amounts for the creation.
"But that's her charming unexpected, Reg. Gally's a born artist."
"Like hell she is. That's only the Hester Bateman I gave her. No L x ./ N yet. And the nightmares are continuing in sequence. Those damned Red Indians have cut me off at the pass."
Claudia took Galatea to her home, where the girl got on