"Gordon R. Dickson - Idiot Solvant" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

I have a personal weakness for zany stories and demented
heroes (they're easier for me to identify with), but that's not why I
like this story so much. Most of us writers are a bit superstitious
about creativity тАУ we don't like to examine the creative process
in any detail; we shy away from trying to discover where all
those funny little ideas come from. Perhaps we think of the
Muse as a timid unicorn, who will flee forever if we beat the
bushes for her. Or perhaps we are wary of getting locked in a
Centipede's Dilemma. Gordy wades right in, of course.
What is genius? A good question. And when it's asked by a
genius, it's a courageous one.
Ah, forget it. Have fun.


IDIOT SOLVANT

The afternoon sun, shooting the gap of the missing slat in the venetian
blind on the window of Art Willoughby's small rented room, splashed fair in
Art's eyes, blinding him.
"Blast!" muttered Art. "Got to do something about that sun."
He flipped one long, lean hand up as an eyeshield and leaned forward
once more over the university news sheet, unaware that he had reacted with
his usual gesture and litany to the sun in his eyes. His mouth watered. He
spread out his sharp elbows on the experiment-scarred surface of his desk
and reread the ad.

Volunteers for medical research testing. $1.60 hr.,
rm., board. Dr. Henry Rapp, Room 432, A Bldg.,
University Hospital.

"Board тАУ" echoed Art aloud, once more unaware he had spoken. He
licked his lips hungrily. Food, he thought. Plus wages. And hospital food
was supposed to be good. If they would just let him have all he wanted . . .
Of course, it would be worth it for the dollar-sixty an hour alone.
"I'll be sensible," thought Art. "I'll put it in the bank and just draw out what I
need. Let's see тАУ one week's work, say тАУ seven times twenty-four times
sixteen. Twosix-eight-eight тАУ to the tenth. Two hundred sixty-eight dollars
and eighty cents . . ."
That much would support him for тАУ mentally, he totted up his daily
expenses. Ordinary expenses, that was. Room, a dollar-fifty.
One-and-a-half-pound loaf of day-old bread at half price тАУ thirteen cents.
Half a pound of peanut butter, at ninety-eight cents for the three-pound
economy size jar тАУ seventeen cents roughly. One all-purpose vitamin
capsule тАУ ten cents. Half a head of cabbage, or whatever was in season
and cheap тАУ approximately twelve cents. Total, for shelter with all utilities
paid and a change of sheets on the bed once a week, plus thirty-two
hundred calories a day тАУ two dollars and two cents.
Two dollars and two cents. Art sighed. Sixty dollars and sixty cents a
month for mere existence. It was heartbreaking. When sixty dollars would
buy a fine double magnum of imported champagne at half a dozen of the