"Frank Herbert - The Eyes of Heisenberg" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Frank Herbert

THE EYES OF HEISENBERG (1966)
One


THEY would schedule a rain for this morning, Dr Thei Svengaard thought. Rain always
makes the parents uneasy... not to mention what it does to the doctors.
A gust of winter wetness rattled against the window behind his desk. He stood, thought of
muting the windows, but the Durants - this morning's parents - might be even more
alarmed by the unnatural silence on such a day.
Dr Svengaard stepped to the window, looked down at the thronging foot traffic - day
shifts going to their jobs in the megalopolis, night shifts headed towards their tumbled rest.
There was a sense of power and movement in the comings and goings of the people in spite
of their troglodyte existence. Most of them, he knew, were childless Sterries... sterile,
sterile. They came and they went, numbered, but numberless.
He had left the intercom open to his reception room and he could hear his nurse, Mrs.
Washington, distracting the Durants with questions and forms.
Routine.
That was the watchword. This must all appear normal, casual routine. The Durants and all
the others fortunate enough to be chosen and to become parents must never suspect the
truth.
Dr Svengaard steered his mind away from such thoughts, reminding himself that guilt
was not a permissible emotion for a member of the medical profession. Guilt led inevitably
to betrayal... and betrayal brought messy consequences. The Optimen were exceedingly
touchy where the breeding program was concerned.
Such a thought with its hint of criticism filled Svengaard with a momentary disquiet. He
swallowed, allowed his mind to dwell on the Folk response to the Optimen, They are the
power that loves us and cares for us.
With a sigh, he turned away from the window, skirted the desk and went through the
door that led via the ready room to the lab. In the ready room, he paused to check his
appearance in the mirror: gray hair, dark brown eyes, strong chin, high forehead and rather
grim lips beneath an aquiline nose. He'd always been rather proud of the remote dignity of
his appearance-cut and had come to terms with the need of adjusting the remoteness. Now,
he softened the set of his mouth, practiced a look of compassionate interest.
Yes, that would do for the Durants - granting the accuracy of their emotional profiles.
Nurse Washington was just ushering the Durants into the lab as Dr Svengaard entered
through his private door. The skylights above them drummed and hissed with the rain. Such
weather suddenly seemed to fit the room's mood: washed glass, steel, plasmeld and tile...
all impersonal. It rained on everyone... and all humans had to pass through a room such as
this... even the Optimen.
Dr Svengaard took an instant dislike to the parents. Harvey Durant was a lithe six-footer
with curly blond hair, light blue eyes. The face was wide with an apparent innocence and
youth. Lizbeth, his wife, stood almost the same height, equally blonde, equally blue-eyed
and young. Her figure suggested Valkyrie robustness. On a silver cord around her neck she
wore one of the omnipresent Folk talismans, a brass figure of the female Optiman, Calapine.
The breeder cult nonsense and religious overtones of the figure did not escape Dr
Svengaard. He suppressed a sneer.
The Durants were parents, however, and robust - living testimony to the skill of the
surgeon who had cut them. Dr Svengaard allowed himself a moment of pride in his