"Robert A. Heinlein - To Sail Beyond the Sunset" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

expect that they would find any... but they might; I certainly was missing
some hours. Days? Anything could have happened.
Dagmar had me pee in a cup and took my blood and saliva, then told me to
climb on to the table and into the stirrups. тАЪShall I do it? Or the Boss? Out of
the way, Pixel! And stop that.тАЩ
тАЪEither of you.тАЩ (A truly considerate nurse. Some female patients canтАЩt stand
to be touched down below by females, others are shy with males. Me, I was
cured of all such nonsense by my father before I was ten.)
Dagmar came back with a dilator... and I noticed something. Brunette, I said
she was. She had remained undressed save for scanty panties - which were
not opaque. she should have shown a dark, built-in fig leaf, no?
No. Just skin shade and a hint of the Great Divide.
A woman who shaves or otherwise depilates her pubic curls has a profound
interest in recreational sex. My beloved first husband Brian pointed this out to
me in the Mauve Decade, circa 905 Gregorian. IтАЩve checked BrianтАЩs assertion
through a century and a half, endless examples. (I am not counting prepping
for surgery or for childbirth.) The ones who did it because they preferred that
styling were without exception hearty, healthy, uninhibited hedonists.
Dagmar wasnтАЩt prepared for surgery; she (obviously!) was not about to give
birth. No, she was about to take part in a saturnalia. QED.
It made me feel warm toward her. Brian, bless his lecherous soul, would
have appreciated her.
By now, in the course of chatting while she took samples, she knew the
essentials of my тАЪhallucinationтАЩ, so she knew that I was a stranger in town. As
she was adjusting that damned dilator (I have always detested them,
although this one was blood temperature and was being handled with the
gentle care that a woman can bring to the task, having been there herself) -
while she was busy with this, I asked a question in order to ignore what she
was doing. тАЪDagmar, tell me about this festival.тАЩ
тАЪLa Fiesta de Santa Carolita? Hey, you clamped down! Watch it, ducks, youтАЩll
hurt yourself.тАЩ
I sighed and tried to relax. Santa Carolita is my second child, bron in 1902
Gregorian.

Chapter 2 - The Garden of Eden
I remember Earth.
I knew her when she was clean and green, mankindтАЩs beautiful bride, sweet
and lush and lovable.
I speak of my own time time, of course, numbered тАЪtwoтАЩ and coded тАЪLeslie
LeCroix.тАЩ But the best known time lines, those policed by the Time Corps for
the Circle of Ouroboros, are all one at the time I was born, 1882 Gregorian,
only nine years after the death of Ira Howard. In z88z the population of Earth
was a mere billion and a half.
When I left Earth just a century later it had increased to over four billion and
that swarming mass was doubling every thirty years.
Remember that ancient Persian parable about doubling grains of rice on a
chessboard? Four billion people are a smidgen larger than a grain of rice;
you quickly run out of chessboard. On one time line EarthтАЩs population
swelled to over thirty billion before reaching final disaster; on other time lines
the end came at less than ten billion. But on all time lines Dr Malthus had the