"Gordon R. Dickson - The Last Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Pixiewould have to be sold. There was no other way to raise a fund of immediately available credit in the
amount he might need to help him rise in the world; and it was almost a foregone conclusion that
somewhere along the way a situation would crop up in which a chunk of credit, instantly available to him,
would make possible a leap up that would not be available to him otherwise. The decision to sell the boat
was like a decision to part with a living creature; but the hard determination now let loose inside him
overrode the pain of parting with her the same way he could trust it to override all other pains that might
stand between him and his goal. The loss ofPixie , in fact, now functioned in him as a reinforcement to his
committment, a price that, once paid, must guarantee deliveryтАФand would guarantee his determination.

The sun extinguished itself, with tropical swiftness, before he left the balcony. He turned from it and went
down to eat in the hotelтАЩs busiest dining room.

==========

During the next two days he stayed in his room, mostly studying data received over an open phone
connection to the local library computersтАФdata on the larger intercontinental consortiums of expediters.
These organizations were the largest in the world not directly under control of the bureaucracy itself; and
they existed because they served to provide flexible, human interfacing between individuals and the
machinery of the bureaucracy itself. In brief, they trained and supplied specialists, from technicians like
the woman who had arranged his taking of the RIV treatment in the clinic he had just left, to the
highest-priced consultants and ombudsworkersтАФindividuals who found their function midway between
citizens like himself and the direct employees of the bureaucracy, such as Dr. Carwell, or the attendant,
Tom Janus. Each such consortium of expediters, of course, had its own organizational machinery, and it
was possible, within such structures, to climb to a fairly high executive rank.

That was important, because study of the situation in the past weeks, since Ett had made up his mind to
take the path that began with having the RIV treatment, had reinforced an unconscious observation he
had found himself to have made earlier. This was that the quickest route to executive rank in the
bureaucracy was to make a success of himself outside of it and then be invited into its upper
levelsтАФrather than starting as one of its lowest employees and working his way up. Also, the chances for
unorthodox and opportunistic improvements in job position were greater outside the rigid structure of the
bureaucracyтАЩs hierarchyтАФat least, within the lower levels of the bureaucracy.

In the higher levels at which a successful outsider might be invited in, much was allowed to go on behind
the scenes that was not tolerated at lower levels; and there were always executives there, one rank up
from that at which Ett might be invited in, who were continually on the lookout for unusually capable
assistants whose efforts could be used to advance the career of the superior.

On the morning of the day on which he was due to return to the clinic, Ett put his research aside,
however, and got up before daylight to takePixie out at dawn for a final time under canvas, alone. Al
was already awake when he got there; and, as always whenPixie had been left in his care, he had her
immaculate and ready. And in his quiet way Al seemed to understand and be sad, when Ett asked him to
go ashore and leave him to sail aloneтАФ although Ett never mentioned his plans to dispose of her.

The thought of abandoning his plan touched Ett for a moment as he glanced back to see the slim young
man watching him quietly from a point near the head of the dock. But then within him there was a
crystallizing, the growth of a hardness that caused him to turn away to watch the waves into which he
headedPixieтАЩs bow. For several hours he put the boat through a demanding series of maneuvers, before
straightening out to rush before the wind, back to the harbor. And it was only then he realized that heтАЩd