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

'Now, you will forget everything that has happened here between us,' Calapine said. 'You will repeat our conversation to no person.'
Svengaard cleared his throat. To no one... Calapine?'
'No one.'
'Max Allgood has asked that I report to him on-'
'Max must be denied,' she said. 'Fear not, Thei Svengaard. We will protect you.'
'As you command,' Svengaard said. 'Calapine.'
'It is not our wish that you think us ungrateful of your loyalty and services,' Nourse said, 'We are mindful of your good opinion and would not appear cold nor callous in your eyes. Know that our concern is for the larger good of humankind.'
'Yes, Nourse,' Svengaard said.
It was a gratuitous speech, its tone disturbing to Svengaard, but it helped clear his reason. He began to see the direction of their curiosity, to sense their suspicions. Those were his suspicions now. Potter had betrayed his trust, had he? The business with the accidentally destroyed tape had not been an accident. Very well - the criminals would pay.
'You may go now,' Nourse said.
'With our blessing,' Calapine said.
Svengaard bowed. And he marked that Schruille had not spoken or moved during the entire interview. Svengaard wondered why this fact, of itself, should be a suddenly terrifying thing. His knees trembled as he turned, the acolytes flanking him with their smoking thuribles, and left the hall.
The Tuyere watched until the barrier dropped behind Svengaard.
'Another one who doesn't know what Potter achieved,' Calapine said.
'Are you sure Max doesn't know?' Schruille asked.
'I'm sure,' she said.
'Then we should've told him.'
'And told him how we knew?' she asked.
'I know the argument,' Schruille said. 'Blunt the instrument, spoil the work.'
That Svengaard, he's one of the reliable ones,' Nourse said.
'It is said we walk the sharp edge of a knife,' Schruille said. 'When you walk the knife, you must be careful how you place your feet.
'What a disgusting idea,' Calapine said. She turned to Nourse. 'Are you still hobbying da Vinci, dearest?'
'His brush stroke,' Nourse said. 'A most exacting discipline. I should have it in forty or fifty years. Soon at any rate.'
'Provided you've placed each step correctly,' Schruille said.
Presently, Nourse said, 'Sometimes, Schruille, you allow cynicism to carry you beyond the bounds of propriety.' He turned, studied the instrument gauges, sensors, peek-eyes and read-outs across from Calapine on the inner wall of the globe. 'It's reasonably quiet today. Shall we leave the control with Schruille, Cal, and go down for a swim and a pharmacy session.'
'Body tone, body tone,' Schruille complained. 'Have you ever considered doing twenty-five laps of the pool instead of twenty?'
'You say the most astonishing things of late,' Calapine said. 'Would you have Nourse upset his enzyme balance? I fail completely in my attempts to understand you.'
'Fail to try,' Schruille said.
'Is there anything we can do for you?' she asked.
'My cycle has plunged me into dreadful monotony,' Schruille said. 'Is there something you can do about that?'
Nourse looked at Schruille in the prismatic reflector. The man's voice with its suggestion of a whine had grown increasingly annoying of late. Nourse was beginning to regret that community of tastes and bodily requirements had thrown them together. Perhaps when the Tuyere's service was done...
'Monotony,' Calapine said. She shrugged.
There's a certain triumph in well-considered monotony,' Nourse said. That's Voltaire, I believe.'
'It sounded like the purest Nourse,' Schruille said.
'I sometimes find it helpful,' Calapine said, 'to invoke a benign concern for the Folk.'
'Even among ourselves?' Schruille asked.
'Consider the fate of the poor computer nurse,' she said. 'In the abstract, naturally. Can you not feel sorrow and pity?'
'Pity's a wasteful emotion,' Schruille said. 'Sorrow is akin to cynicism.' He smiled. This will pass. Go to your swim. When the vigor's on you, think of me... here.'
Nourse and Calapine stood, ordered the carrier beams into position.
'Efficiency,' Nourse said. 'We must seek more efficiency in our minions. Things must be made to run more smoothly.'
Schruille looked up at them waiting for the beams. He wanted only to be free of the wanton rambling of their voices. They missed the point, insisted on missing it.
'Efficiency?' Calapine asked. 'Perhaps you're right.'
Schruille no longer could contain the emotions at war within him. 'Efficiency's the opposite of craftsmanship,' he said. Think on that!'
The beams came. Nourse and Calapine slid down and away without answering, leaving Schruille to close the segment. He sat alone at last within the green-blue-red winking of the control center - alone except for the glittering eyes of scanners activated along the upper circle of the globe. He counted eighty-one of them alive and staring at him and at the responses of the globe. Eighty-one of his fellows... or groups of his fellows were out there observing him and his work as he observed the Folk and their work.
The scanners imparted a vague uneasiness to Schruille. Before the Tuyere's service, he could never remember watching the control center or its activities. Too much that was painful and unthinkable occurred here. Were the former masters of the control center curious about how the new trio dispatched its duties? Who were the watchers?
Schruille dropped his attention to the instruments. In moments like this he often felt like Chen Tzu-ang's 'Master of Dark Truth' who saw the whole world in a jade bottle. Here was the jade bottle - this globe. A flick of the power ring on the arm of his throne and he could watch a couple making love in Warsopolis, study the contents of an embryo vat in Greater
London or loose hypnotic gas with taming suggestions into a warren of New Peking. The touch of a key and he could analyze the shifting motives of an entire work force in the megalopolis of Roma.
Searching within himself, Schruille could not find the impulse to move a single control.
He thought back, trying to remember how many scanners had watched the first years of the Tuyere's service. He was sure it had never exceeded ten or twelve. But now - eighty-one.
I should've warned them about Svengaard, he thought. I could've said that we shouldn't rely on the assumption there's a special Providence for fools. Svengaard is a fool who disturbs me.