"01 - Midnight at the Well of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

ually adjusted the temperature and barometric pres-
sure that kept each inflated. On such a dead world
little else was needed, and the insides were lined to
make punctures almost impossible. If any such did
happen, though, only those in the punctured area would
be killed; the computer could seal off any portion of
the complex.

Skander entered last, climbing into the air lock after

5

making certain that none of his charges or major equip-
ment was left outside. By the time the lock equalized
and allowed him into the entry tent, the others were
already all or partially out of their pressure suits.

He stopped for a minute, looking at them. Eight
representatives from four planets of the Confederation
Чand, except for the one from the heavy-gravity

world, all looked alike.

All were exceptionally trim and muscular; they could
be a gymnastic team without any imagination. Although
they ranged in age from fourteen to twenty-two, they
all looked prepubescent, which, in fact, they were.
Their sexual development had been genetically ar-
rested, and would probably continue that way. He
looked at the boy, Varnett, and the girl, JainetЧboth
from the same planet, the name of which eluded him.
The oldest and the youngest of the expedition, yet
they were exactly the same height and weight, and,
with heads shaved, were virtually identical twins. They
had been grown in a lab, a Birth Factory, and brought
up by the State to think as identically as they looked.
He had once asked why they continued to make both
male and female models, only half in Jest. It was, of
course, a redundancy system in case anything hap-
pened to the Birth Factories, he had been told.

Humanity was on at least three hundred planets,
and of those all but a handful were on the same line
as the world that had spawned these two. Absolute
equality, he thought sourly. Look alike, behave alike,
think alike, all needs provided for, all wants fulfilled
in equal measure to all, assigned the work they were
raised for and taught that it was the only proper place
for them and their duty. He wondered how the techno-
crats in charge decided who was to be what.