"Philip Jose Farmer - Dayworld rebel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

was out enjoying the early spring sun. They should be outside. Of the approximately ninety obdays
of this season, they would know only approximately eleven days ofit.
Timehoppers, he thought. A grasshopper clinging to a weed bending under its weight flashed through
his mind. With it came pain. Or memory of pain? He had no idea why he should envision a
grasshopper and feel grief. Nothing in his memory connected them to him.
Suddenly, a fly tearing herself loose from a web-a web also of memory?-Arszenti jerked her stare
from the window and leaned forward. She looked fiercely at him, which only made the big handsome
blonde even more attractive. Her large white teeth looked as if they were about to bite him; they
shone like sun on prison bars.
William Duncan grinned. It took more than that to scare him. "I don't know how you did it," she
said. "You integrated seven different personalities. No, that's not right. You dissolved,
repressed beyond detectability, let's say, the seven personae. You became an eighth person. You
even have some of the memories of that eighth person, your present persona, though they have to be
false. But you can't change your fingerprints, odorprints, bloodprints, eyeprints,
brainwaveprints, all that declares that you are still Jefferson Cervantes Caird, the Tuesday cop,
and all


those others, Tingle, Dunski, Repp, Ohm, Zurvan, and Isharashvili. The personae you changed, but
the body. . . you're no Proteus."
"Until you told me about them, showed me all those tapes," he said, "I'd never heard of them."
"That seems to be true," she said. "Seems is the operative word here."
"For God's sake! I've been under the mist many times, and you've also monitored me with blood
chemistry and brainwave tests, or so you said, and you haven't found the slightest indication I'm
lying."
"But there is no William St.-George Duncan in the records. Therefore, there is no such person. We
know who you are. were, I mean. And. .
She leaned back, her wrists on the edge of the desk. Her glare had softened to puzzlement.
"I'm authorized to tell you that the official opinion is that you may be unique. May be. They're
not sure there aren't others who're also able to resist the truth mist."
He smiled, and he said, "That must really panic them."
"Nonsense. It could, let us say, ripple the fabric of society, make things uncertain for a while.



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But it won't shake our society to the roots of its being. It'll just take some flexibility to
adapt."
"The bureaucracy, which is the government, doesn't have flexibility," Duncan said. "Never did;
never will."
"Don't be amused. You'll be subjected to a long and intense experimentation. It may be emotionally
painful for you. It'll determine if you are resistant to the mist. And, if you are, why."
"Well, at least that'll put off the time to stone me."
She leaned forward again. Her elbow was on the desk, and her chin was in her hand.
"Your attitude bothers me. You're so cheerful and unafraid. It's as if you expected to escape-
soon."
Still smiling, he said, "Of course, you asked me if I planned to escape?"
"Yes. That bothers me even more. You stated that you had no