"Alan Dean Foster - Humanx 5 - Sentenced To Prism" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"I'm neither a biologist nor a chemist, sir."
Machoka turned to his right and touched a panel on his chest. A
leather‑backed
video screen about ten centi-meters square emerged from the arm of the
lounge‑chair. The president rested his chin in one hand while he studied
the
display thus presented, spoke without looking up from the screen.
"No, you're not. You're an interdisciplinarian, a jack--
of‑all‑trades. You take
a little from this field and a little from that and come up with solutions to
problems." He looked up from the display. " We already have specialists
working
on Prism. Evidently they are not getting the job done. It seems they are in
some
difficulty."
"What kind of difficulty?"
"We don't know. That's part of our problem. We don't know because we haven't
been able to make contact with the station there in quite a while. If it was
something easily repaired or coped with the station staff would have han-dled
it
by now. They haven't. It may be nothing more than a simple breakdown in
communications requiring a part they don't happen to have in stock."
"Then why bring me into it? Send in a communications crew."
"You were one of those responsible for the develop-ment of the Avilla
Off‑World
Exploration software, weren't you?тАЭ
"Not exactly. I was the one responsible for its devel-opment."
"So even though your in vivo off world experience is limited, you have via
computer and the software you designed actually been on and coped with
literally
hun-dreds of difficult and complex new world crises?"
Evan nodded. "That's right."
"So in that regard you're probably better prepared to deal with whatever
problem
has arisen on Prism than most of our field people."
"Perhaps. That still doesn't explain why you don't send in a crew. If you want
to send a generalist, then I'm your man, but I don't see why you don't
surround
me with a few specialists."
Machoka was drumming the fingers of his right hand on the arm of the couch.
Suddenly he gave the top of the video screen a hard slap, driving it back down
into its cubicle.
"You asked why you haven't heard about Prism's dis-covery. You deserve an
answer."
"I think I've already inferred‑one."
"Then you deserve confirmation. You haven't heard about it because the Aurora
Group's presence there at this time is, well, let's call it semilegal."
Evan tried not to smile. "Does that mean someone else might refer to it as
semi‑illegal?"
"Only if he were less than tactful," said Machoka qui-etly. "We've managed to