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

"Not at all. We can take all day for this if we have to. But it's really very simple. When you pour out half
a cup of laundry detergent, you don't care which particles of detergent fall out of the box, do you? You
just want to know that the particles you get will do the job, right? We have a job to do here, and you are
the particles of the human family that we expect to do the job. That's all. Next time we pour, we'll get five
hundred and twelve different particles."
He accepted a note from one of the assistants, unfolded it, glanced at it, shook his head and handed it
back. He moved around to the back of the section I was sitting in. I had to turn around to see him; that
was uncomfortable, so I turned forward again and continued to watch him on the overhead screen. Dr.
Chin's image was also split-screened in.
She was still standing at her seat. She looked very angry. She said, "That's all very clever, Dr. Foreman.
But I still don't agree with the results of the selection process."
Foreman stopped smiling. "That's too bad. But we're not here to have an election. We already had one.
The bad news is you're one of the winners."
There was more laughter at this, even some applause. Foreman held up a hand to stop it. "Don't get
cocky;" he warned us. "What you've won is custody of the biggest disaster in human history." The
laughter stopped.
Foreman added quietly, he was speaking to all of us, "Now here's the really bad news-it may turn out
that you are not the very best qualified individuals to be here. You may all be fuck-ups and failures. We
won't know that until it's too late to change it. But we have to start somewhere."
Dr. Chin had remained standing. She still didn't look satisfied, perhaps she never would be. Foreman
looked across the rows and rows of interested faces at her. "Yes?"
"I don't know if I want to be here," she said.
"It's a little late for that, isn't it? You're already here."
"I'm having second thoughts."
"I see," said Foreman. He came around the chairs and up the aisle and stood face to face with Dr. Chin.
He had circled the entire room. He spoke softly. "You're waiting to see how it works out, right? You
have to know that you like it here, or that you agree with what happens here, before you'll participate.
That's a good excuse to keep one foot out the door just in case it gets rough. You'll leave yourself a
justification for quitting, right?"
"No!" she said, a little too vehemently. She looked as if she were being attacked. Foreman merely
looked bored. "You don't know what I'm thinking!" she said. "I don't make decisions until I think things
over-and I'm still thinking!"
"I see. You don't make commitments-you think about them."
"To make sure they're right!"
"Uh-huh-that's very clear. Thinking things over is one of the best forms of denial-because it masquerades
as responsibility. `I'm thinking it over' is the polite way to say no, to put someone off: You see, there's a
lie in that sentence. What you're really saying is, `I don't want to think about this at all. Please stop forcing
me to."' He looked around the room. "How many of you have done that?"
At least half the people in the room raised their hands. I raised mine.
Foreman didn't even bother to look. He turned back to Dr. Chin. "But the Chtorrans aren't going to wait
for you to think this one over, Dr. Chin. Neither are we. There isn't any more time. You have to choose
now. Are you going to be here or not?" He waited patiently.
"I don't like being browbeaten!" Dr. Chin snapped at him. Her eyes were blazing.
"Terrific. I don't like enemas. But what either of us likes or dislikes is irrelevant to the commitment to be
made here." Foreman retained an easy control. "Now, are you going to be here, or do you just want to
dither? Let me tell you, people who dither never finish dithering. They just find new things to dither about.
And it really pisses off the other people in their lives."
Dr. Chin looked frustrated and close to tears. If I hadn't been so annoyed with her for holding things up, I
would have felt sorry for her. She wailed, "Why does this have to be decided now?"
"Because this is the part of the course where Dorothy Chin chooses to be here. Or not. We cannot