"Robert A. Heinlein - I will fear no evil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

I WILL FEAR NO EVIL
Robert A. Heinlein

Note: The National Rare Blood Club (mentioned herein) is a nonprofit
organization having its national headquarters at 164 Fifth Avenue, New
York, N. Y. 10010, telephone (212) Chelsea 3-8037. R.A.H.



To Rex and Kathleen



1


The room was old-fashioned, 1980 baroque, but it was wide, long, high, and
luxurious. Near simulated view windows stood an automated hospital bed. It
looked out of place but was largely concealed by a magnificent Chinese
screen. Forty feet from it a boardroom table also failed to match the decor.
At the head of this table was a life-support wheelchair; wires and tubings
ran from it to the bed.
Near the wheelchair, at a mobile stenodesk crowded with directional mikes,
voice typewriter, clock-calendar, controls, and the usual ancillaries, a young
woman sat. She was beautiful.
Her manner was that of the perfect unobtrusive secretary but she was
dressed in a current exotic mode. "Half & Half"-right shoulder and breast
and arm concealed in jet-black knit, left leg sheathed in a scarlet tight,
panty-ruffle in both colors joining them, black sandal on the scarlet side, red
sandal on her bare right foot. Her skin paint was patterned in the same
scarlet and black.
On the other side of the wheelchair was an older woman garbed in a
nurse's conventional white pantyhose and smock. She ignored everything
but her dials and a patient in the chair. Seated around the table were a
dozen-odd men, most of them in spectator-sports style affected by older
executives.
Cradled in the life-support chair was a very old man. Except for restless
eyes, he looked like a poor job of embalming. No cosmetic help had been
used to soften the brutal fact of his decrepitude.
"Ghoul," he was saying softly to a man halfway down the table. "You're a
slavering ghoul, Parky me boy. Didn't your father teach you that it is polite
to wait for a man to stop kicking before you bury him? Or did you have a
father? Erase that last, Eunice. Gentlemen, Mr. Parkinson has moved that I
be invited to resign as chairman of the board. Do I hear a second?"
He waited, looking from face to face, then said, "Oh, come now! Who is
letting you down, Parky? You,
George?"
"I had nothing to do with it."
"But you would love to vote 'Aye.' Motion fails for want of a second."
"I withdraw my motion."