"Monica Hughes - Devil On My Back" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hughes Monica)

was something Tomi didn't bother to understand.
He waited greedily for Seventy-Three to serve him, but when the plate of scrambled eggs and
toast was placed before him, his stomach did another flip-flop. He swallowed and put down his fork,
"Something is wrong, Young Lord?"
"No, it's just... I think I'm not hungry after all."
тАФEggs contain the most perfect available protein as well as Vitamin A, calcium, riboflavin and
thiaminтАФA familiar voice spoke inside Tomi's head. He sighed. obediently picked up his fork and forced
himself to eat.
He was struggling with the last mouthful when Lord Bentt came quickly into the apartment. He
had the look of a man who had already completed a good day's work. Tomi marveled that he had never
seen his father other than fully clothed and on the go. No matter how quickly he responded to the
wake-up call in his brain, the Lord Bentt was ahead of him.
Tomi jumped to his feet and bowed as deeply as his fat belly would permit. "Good morning, my
Lord. I hope you slept well?"
"Excellently." Lord Bentt sat at the head of the table and nodded to the slave to serve his
breakfast. "You are up very promptly. No dreaming in the shower, eh?"
"It is Access Day, my Lord."
For an instant his father sat motionless. Then he nodded and reached for the dish of seasoning
herbs. His face was expressionless. "Ah yes. Access Day. Well, I have no concern. You will bring honor
to the House of Bentt."
"I will try, my Lord."
"You will succeed." His father glared at him from under eyebrows that slashed darkly across the
pale hairless face. Bowed beneath his weight of accessed knowledge, Lord Bentt glowered up. "You
will succeed. "
"Y... yes, my Lord. Er... may I be excused?"
His mother drifted into the room as he rose from the table. He kissed her hand dutifully. She
smiled faintly, her mind on women's things, probably the new fabric she was designing for the workers to
weave. Her shoulders too were bowed with accessed knowledge, but useless stuff, thought Tomi,
thankful he was not a woman.
He sat on the entrance bench for Seventy-Three to do up his sandals. One of the thongs had
become knotted, and as the slave stooped to disentangle it the shaggy hair parted and fell forward,
exposing for an instant the ugly puckered scar across the back of the neck.
Tomi shuddered inwardly. Thank the Dome that hadn't happened to him. His surgically implanted
socket had healed neatly with no hard scar tissue to twist or distort it.
The sandal was done up at last and Seventy-Three suddenly looked up, straight into Tomi's eyes.
It gave him a shock, looking straight into the eyes of a slave. They were as human as his and quite young.
He wondered who Seventy-Three had been before the implant failure had led to a slave's life.
"Good luck, Young Lord." Seventy-Three squeezed Tomi's foot, an unexpected, almost a
scandalous gesture.
Good luck. As Tomi walked towards the main corridor that led to Center and South Quad he
thought about luck. Was luck all that separated him from Seventy-Three? That made Tomi the honored
only son of Lord and Lady Bentt and Seventy-Three a nameless slave? No, it must be more than that.
Not just luck...
At the classroom door he met the other nine. They smiled weakly at each other. Even jovial
Farfat didn't have a joke for the occasion. They stood in uneasy silence until the bowed figure of their
tutor, Lord Vale, shuffled along the passage to the classroom.
"Ah!" he peered up, seeming surprised to see them. For the past seven years he had seemed
surprised to see them. "There you are, boys. Bright and early, eh? Eager for the experience, ha, ha!
Come in, then. Come in."
 They made themselves comfortable on their couches, each with its familiar terminal. Tomi glanced