"Suzette Haden Elgin - Only A Housewife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

him.
One's father's foibles; everyone's father had foibles. It gave you something
to
talk about at the club. But his friends didn't have those foibles constantly
under their noses; it was easy for them to be indulgent and amused.

Joro's situation was not amusing. It was a burden. An intolerable burden.
Something had to be done. He went into the space his mother had generously
allotted to him for a laboratory -- not that she had any need for it herself
any
longer, with all his brothers and sisters gone -- and he applied himself to
the
dilemma in the same way he would have tackled any other scientific problem. He
made a list. He laid out the data. He formulated hypotheses and tested them on
the computer, in a model of his own construction. He observed the results, and
he changed the model to reflect them, and he tried again. He was an inspired
and
superbly trained scientist; he made a lot of money because he was good at what
he did; and he was methodical. It never crossed his mind that he might not
find
the solution.

When it came to him, after two weeks of trying and discarding and trying
again,
it was almost laughably simple. He couldn't imagine why it had taken him so
long
to think of it, except that of course it's always the simple solutions that do
take time. He had been so delighted that he'd gone out and thrown a huge party
for the men of his circle, inviting even the ones he usually snubbed, and
spent
two miserable days getting rid of the resulting hangover. It had been worth
it,
a celebration was called for, he had provided a fitting one.

The houses the women grew fed on estrogen, the woman-hormone, and he hadn't
been
able to work out either a synthetic that would serve or a way to guarantee a
supply of the real thing. But he had realized, finally, that there was no
reason
why a house couldn't live just as well on the male hormone--live better, in
fact. For testosterone meant a stronger house by far. A male house. What could
be more obvious?

The modifications were easily accomplished. The only difficult part had been
finding a family desperate enough to let him take the house-bud away from one
of
its daughters who lay near death and had no use for it anyway. He had promised
them that she would feel no pain, and she had not, he had performed the
surgery
with scrupulous care, the laser in his hand like a musical instrument of which