"David Brin - Just a Hint" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

that I can learn your techniques."
"You'll never learn them as long as you fail to understand why I make up
Bard-isms." Federman smiled.
Liz pointed a finger at him, then thought better of it.
"Touchщ," she said. "I'll enroll in Lit. 106 next term. Okay? That is, if there's still a
world then."
"Are we in a pessimistic mood today?"
Liz shrugged. "I shouldn't be, I suppose. Every spring is seems there's less smog
and other pollution. Remember that eyesore wrecking yard on Highway Eight? Well,
it's gone now. They've put in a park."
"So nu? Then what's wrong?"
She threw the morning paper over to his side of the desk. "That's what's wrong!
Just when we seem about to make peace with nature, they're stepping along the edge
of war! There were demonstrations on campus yesterday... neither side listening to
the other, and neither side willing to concede a single point. I tell you, Sam, it's all I
can do to keep from hiding in my work and letting the world just go to hell on its
own!"
Federman glanced at the paper, then looked up at his assistant. His expression
was ironic.
"Liz, you know my feelings about this. Radio astronomy is not disconnected
from the problems of war and peace on Earth. It may, indeed, be intimately involved
in the solution."


The sophont had no nose, but he did have a name. If one started there and kept
listing his attributes one would find him quite a bit more human than not. The things
his species had in common with the dominant race of Earth would have surprised
them both almost as much as the differences, but the most important of each has
already been mentioned.
He had no nose. His name was Fetham.
"No!" he cried out in the language of confrontation. He pounded a four-fingered
fist on his desktop. "Are you mad? Mad! What do you mean, the funds are needed
elsewhere? The legislature agreed by almost unanimous vote. Full, permanent,
emergency funding!"
The smaller being with no nose was named Gathu. He held up his hand in a newly
discovered version of the Gesture of Placation directed at the Optic Nerve.
"Please, Academician! Please remember that those votes were taken years ago.
There is a new Assembly now. And since the public health situation has
deteriorated..."
"The problem I am trying to solve!"
"... it has fallen on the leadership to seek out new sources of finance for medical
research. Surely you know that we applaud your efforts. But it seemed more and
more a shot in the dark."
Fetham's prehensile ears waved in agitation.
"Of course it's a shot in the dark! But isn't it worth it? There may be a race out
there that has been through what we now face. With the entire world threatened, our
very survival in question, shouldn't we make an effort to contact them?"
The government representative nodded. "But you have another two years in your
appropriation, have you not? And by husbanding your funds you might make them
last longer."