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

 Lord Vale moved, stoop shouldered, to the front of the class. His face was smooth, schooled
through fifty years of lordly discipline. "Relax. Breathe in slowly. One... two... three..." The voice droned
on. Tomi was almost asleep when Lord Vale once more moved between the couches fitting infopaks into
the sockets of the remaining students.
He finished and lightly clapped his hands. Tomi's eyes flew open. Farfat was grinning at him and
he smiled weakly back. Good old Farfat. Not a gram of imagination in him.
"Are you ready, Young Lords? We will begin to access slowly, to accustom your nervous
systems to the sudden high input of signals." He turned to his desk and tapped a command into the
terminal. "Be ready to watch your screens and respond. Do not hurry. The master computer will give you
access at the rate you demand and no faster. Do not be afraid to take your time. The City wasn't built in
a day!"
They tittered dutifully at the old joke.
"Switch on your terminals, identify yourselves and begin."
Tomi tapped his identicode into the terminal. A question flashed onto the screen. "Give the value
of pi to twenty places."
Twenty places? I don't know that! He took a shaky breath. Take your time, Lord Vale had said.
He reached out to the keyboard and began to tap out the answer. 3.14159265358979323846. I
knew it. I knew it! He waited for the next question.
"When was Mores Utopia first published?"
"1516." It was amazing. There was no sense of searching his memory. Whatever he wanted was
there, accessible. Knowledge is power, a voice spoke inside his head. Where did it come from? His new
paks? Or was it something he had found out for himself? He leaned forward eagerly towards the console.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a sudden flashing movement and turned in amazement to see
Farfat, at the end of the row, crouched over his terminal, his hand moving faster than human hand could
possibly move.
At the same instant Lord Vale moved swiftly from his desk. Before he could reach him Farfat
was on his feet, his hands to his head. "I am Farfat. Far... far... It is a far far better thing that I do than I
have... far... the extent of the universe is fifty billion light years... whereas Newton's law expresses..."
Lord Vale reached Farfat, but was fought by hands clawing frantically at the old Lord's scraggy
neck. Tomi leapt from his couch and ran to help. He couldn't believe the strength of Farfat, his eyes mad,
howling like a dog.
"Denn, help!"
The two boys struggled to hold Farfat's wrists down while Lord Vale wrenched the infopaks
from their socket at the back of his neck. Tomi saw his friend's eyes roll up into his head. He sagged
forward into their arms as the soldiers again rushed in.
Tomi and Denn saw the limp body of their friend dragged from the room. The other six students
lay rigidly on their couches, their eyes fixed on their screens, pretending not to notice the disgusting event.
"Thank you, boys. Continue with your work." Lord Vales voice was calm.
Tomi's mouth fell open. "But..."
"Continue, Young Lords." There was a harsh warning behind the quiet command. Obediently
Tomi went back to his console. Problems flashed to the screen and his fingers automatically answered
them; but all he really saw was the mad glare in Farfat s eyes, all he heard was the demented howl of
poor Grog.
I can't concentrate, he thought in panic and fumbled an answer. I can't... Could they throw me
out now? Could I be programmed into a slave like Grog or a worker like Farfat?
His hands shook and he pressed the palms together and tried to breathe deeply, to think calmly,
praying that the Lord Tutor would not notice him.
Lord Vale clapped his hands and at the sharp sound a chill of fear ran down Tomi s spine. But
their tutor was actually smiling. "Well done, Young Lords. That will be sufficient for today. I will see you
at the same time tomorrow. If you have any trouble within the next day let me know at once."