"David Gerrold - Chtorr 3 - A Rage for Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gerrold David)

Hanging above the dais were four large screens, one facing each section of chairs. There were
loudspeakers too.
There was a person just inside the door. She was wearing featureless white jumpsuit and a blank
expression. Her name tag said SEVEN. Without taking her eyes off me, she pointed at the chairs. "Take
the front-most, center-most seat, please."
"Uh, thank you." I moved slowly toward the chairs. I didn't like the looks of this.
Another assistant was waiting for me halfway there. He was equally blank-faced. His name was
FIFTEEN.
"McCarthy?"
"Yes?"
"Take the front-most, center-most seat."
"Uh, okay."
"And don't talk to your neighbors."
"Yes, sir."
I found a place in the second row of the north-facing section of chairs and sat down. The sections were
filling rapidly. I was between a major and a colonel. I looked around. I didn't see anyone below the rank
of lieutenant.
I noticed that some of the people filing into the room were carrying light brown jumpsuits. I wondered
what that meant. Perhaps they weren't in a branch of the service. They were coming into the room from
all four sides. Their expressions were . . . apprehensive. I wondered what mine looked like. This didn't
seem like such a good idea any more. How many of us were there anyway?
I craned my head to count the chairs. The rows were eerily precise; the blocks were absolutely and
impeccably square. There were 64 chairs to a block. Two blocks to a side. 128 chairs times Wr sides of
the square equals 512 chairs. The last of the chairs ere filling even as I watched. There were no empty
chairs that I could see. 512 trainees.
I stood up to look around. There were tables for the assistants placed strategically around the room,
mostly along the walls, but there were also tables not too far behind the last row of chairs on each side of
the formation. The people sitting behind the tables were expressionless. They too wore blank jumpsuits
and numbered name tags. I sat down again, nervously.
I shivered. It was cold in here.
At the end of my row, two gray-haired colonels were talking quietly. Their expressions were sour. I
didn't recognize either one of them, but it was obvious that they both had some reservations about being
here. They were already trading their opinions. One of the assistants came up the row and stopped in
front of them. She was as blank as all the others. She said, "Don't talk to your neighbors."
"Why?" demanded one of the colonels.
The assistant ignored the question and continued up the aisle. The colonel looked angry. She wasn't used
to being ignored. She folded her arms in front of her chest and glared. She exchanged an annoyed look
with her companion.
My watch beeped. It was precisely 9 A.M.
The Very Reverend Honorable Doctor Daniel Jeffrey Foreman, M.D., Ph.D. strode to the center of the
room, stepped up onto the dais and began to look us over. He wore dark pants and a light gray sweater.
His white hair floated around his head like a halo. His expression was sharp and steely. He turned slowly,
checking us out individually and as a group. I had the sense that he was looking into every set of eyes in
the room.
When he finished, he looked to the back of the room and nodded. The screens above his head lit up.
They showed a close-up of his face. "Good morning," he said. "Thank you for being here." He smiled as
if he were about to tell a joke. "You can say good morning back, if you want to."
There were a few mumbled responses, grunts that sounde vaguely like "G'mrmble." I didn't want to
commit myself either. Foreman smiled to himself, as if he were the only one who had gotten the joke. He
turned to us and said crisply, "All right. Let's go to work. The purpose of today's session is to create the