"Dick, Philip K - We Can Build You - txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

When we entered our office we found my brother Chester on the phone from Boise, reminding us that we had left the Edwin M. Stanton in the family living room, and asking us to pick it up, please.
"Well, we'll try to get out sometime today," I promised him.
Chester said, "It's sitting where you left it. Father turned it on for a few minutes this morning to see if it got the news."
"What news?"
"The morning news. The summary, like David Brinkley." He meant _gave_ the news. So my family had in the meantime decided that I was right; it was a machine after all and not a person.
"Did it?" I asked.
"No," Chester said. "It talked about the unnatural impudence of commanders in the field."
When I had hung up the phone Maury said, "Maybe Pris would get it."
"Does she have a car?" I asked.
"She can take the Jag. Maybe you better go along with her, though, in case there's still a chance your dad's interested."
Later in the day Pris showed up at the office, and soon we were on our way back to Boise.
For the first part of the trip we drove in silence, Pris behind the wheel. All at once she said, "Do you have connections with someone who's interested in the Edwin M. Stanton?" She eyed me.
"No. What a strange question."
"What's your real motive for coming along on this trip? You do have a concealed motive . . . it radiates from every pore of your body. If it were up to me I wouldn't let you within a hundred yards of the Stanton."
As she continued to eye me, I knew I was in for more dissection.
"Why aren't you married?" she asked.
"I don't know."
"Are you a homosexual?"
"No!"
"Did some girl you fell in love with find you too ugly?"
I groaned.
"How old are you?"
That seemed reasonable enough, and yet, in view of the general attitude she held, I was wary of even that. "Ummm," I murmured.
"Forty?"
"No. Thirty-three."
"But your hair is gray on the sides and you have funnylooking snaggly teeth."
I wished I was dead.
"What was your first reaction to the Stanton?" Pris asked.
I said, "I thought, 'What a kindly-looking old gentleman that is there.'
"You're lying, aren't you?"
"Yes!"
"What did you actually think?"
"I thought, 'What a kindly-looking old gentleman that is there, wrapped up in newspapers.'"
Pris said thoughtfully, "You probably are queer for old men. So your opinion isn't worth anything."
"Listen, Pris, somebody is going to brain you with a tire iron, someday. You understand?"
"You can barely handle your hostility, can you? Is that because you're a failure in your own eyes? Maybe you're being too hard on yourself. Tell me your childhood dreams and goals and I'll tell you if--"
"Not for a billion dollars."
"Are they shameful?" She continued to study me intently. "Did you do shameful sexual things with yourself, like it tells about in the psych books?"
I felt as if I were about to pass out.
"Obviously I hit on a sensitive topic with you," Pris said. "But don't be ashamed. You don't do it anymore, do you? I suppose you still might. . . you're not married, and normal sexual outlets are denied you." She pondered that. "I wonder what Sam does, along the sex line."
"Sam Vogel? Our driver, now in the Reno, Nevada, area?"
"No. Sam K. Barrows."
"You're obsessed," I said. "Your thoughts, your speech, your tiling the bathroom--your involvement in the Stanton."
"The simulacrum is brilliantly original."
"What would your analyst say about it?"
"Milt Horstowski? I told him. He already said."
"Tell me," I said. "Didn't he say this is a deranged manic compulsion of some kind?"
"No, he agreed that I should be doing something creative. When I told him about the Stanton he complimented me on it and hoped it would work out."
"Probably you gave him one hell of a biased account."