"Alan Dean Foster - Flinx 12 - Trouble Magnet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

Mastiff, and other exemplary examples of contemporary cognizance and compassion. Even those who hungered
first and foremost for wealth, like the old prospector Knigta Yakus, were at heart good folk whose heritable lines
were deserving of preservation.

Maybe that was it, he told himself as he sat up straighter in the command chair. In the course of his short but very
full life, so many of those he had been in close contact with had been in one way or another exceptional or
atypical. Easy enough to rationalize risking all to save such. But what about the great, restless, surging mass of
others? Did they deserve salvation? Was the future of those vast, unknown, swarming genetic masses worth the
sacrifice of his personal happiness? That was really what was at stake. That was truly what he needed to decide.

He had told the now deceased Peot that he needed to acquire wisdom. Where to go and what to do to find it? In
his short life he had seen much. Love, hate, all manner of planetary environments. But not, his recent encounter
on Repler with the disreputable drugger and emoman Dominic Rose notwithstanding, the full wickedness and
inventive iniquity of which humankind and others were capable. In order to pass judgment on his fellow
sentients, and to acquire the fullness of wisdom that he sought, it was only reasonable to believe that he needed to
experience that as well. Needed to proceed counter to his natural impulses and immerse himself in the worst that
full-blown civilization had to offer.

He mentally and methodically worked his way through the most relevant steller schematics. The source for the
kind of learning he desired lay a good way distant but not all that far off his present vector. Determination
overrode a hesitancy that as recently as several years ago would have held him back from proceeding.
Determination, and a seriously advanced case of what-the-hell.

Sensing his change of mood, Pip spread her wings, rose, and glided over to land on his right shoulder. As her tail
end curled affectionately around his neck, he reached up with his free hand to absently stroke the smooth, scaly
back of her head.

тАЬCourse change,тАЭ he announced aloud, lowering his cup. тАЬWe will remain within the borders of the
Commonwealth, but off the Almaggee vector. Set a course for Visaria.тАЭ

The TeacherтАЩs ship-mind was programmed to emulate an extensive and varied assortment of human reactions,
but pausing for emphasis was not one of them. Therefore, its skepticism was immediate.

тАЬPermit me to point out that Visaria represents a considerable detour from the most direct route into the Blight,
the region you wish to search for signs of the absented Tar-Aiym artifact.тАЭ

He glanced toward one of the numerous visual pickups that were scattered about the command chamber. тАЬYep.тАЭ


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Nonexistent applicable programming notwithstanding, the ship-mind momentarily did seem to hesitate. тАЬVisaria
is an N Class One, highly industrialized human-dominated colony world. It has no links that I can discover to the
alien weapons platform you are engaged in seeking out, and its heavily concentrated and urbanized population is
the kind you prefer to avoid whenever possible.тАЭ

тАЬYep,тАЭ muttered Flinx a second time. He took a swallow of tea. Forward of the curving port, stars and nebulae
whirled about one another in an eternal crazed tarantellaтАФfused hydrogen partnering with torn particles to