"Michael Kandel - Hooking Up" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kandel Michael)

field. The window of the room she shared with seven other children looked out on
the field. It was a nice view. You could see for a long distance. She wondered
when they would be allowed to play on the field. Not today, it was raining. The
rain was the thing Topaz liked best about Earth. It was very gentle here and
smelled good. On Nerol, the rain stung and people had to avoid it. Topaz got her
roommates to help clean up the room, because it was dirty. She said, Let's make
a game of it, and they did. The woman in charge of their floor was pleased with
Topaz. I wish they were all like you, she said. It wasn't a very diplomatic
thing to say in the presence of the other children. We'll all get better, Topaz
told her.

At school the next day, Buck followed her around more, even missing a therapy
session he was supposed to go to. Topaz let him carry her satchel for her, and
she wiped his nose for him and tied his shoes for him. They kept getting untied.
She tried to teach him how to make a knot that wouldn't come loose, but it was
too much for him. Paz, he said, as if that was his only word now. She wondered
if he would ever be in good enough condition to get a new plon when the new
plons were ready. Maybe a plon would be invented that not only hooked you up to
the net but also made you intelligent.

A man came to talk to them, from the government. He had a big nose and not much
hair, and his voice was deep and scratchy, reminding Topaz of a comedian on
compuvision back on Nerol. The comedian's name was Ajax. She was glad she
remembered that. The man told the children about progress, that sometimes there
were problems but the problems could always be solved if you used science and
kept your eyes on the future. Look at all the new things we had, and every day
there were more of them. The government was installing something in the net, the
man told them, that would make it impossible for it to crash anymore. And if
there was wrong feedback or a glitch sometimes, the man said, the thing that
they were installing now would protect the people. There would be a cut-off
switch in every plon. So the children should not be afraid of the net. He kept
looking at Topaz as he talked, because she was the healthiest and best-looking
and most intelligent child in the room.

Topaz thought that when she grew up, she would have a lot of responsibilities
and help take care of children. Maybe she would be in charge of a child center.
She would be a leader of some kind, she could see that. She would be important.
People would need her, because on all of Earth there would only be a few like
her: a child who hadn't been hooked up because she came from another planet and
not because something was wrong with her head or her brain was damaged in some
way. And when she was in charge, she would make sure that all the children
didn't do exactly the same thing all the time. They wouldn't all have curly
hair, and they wouldn't all play Bucket. Maybe the plons could be different too,
and maybe there could even be different kinds of nets. It was very important,
Topaz thought, for children to do different things and be different from one
another. They should be like wildflowers in a field, not like a row of tulips in
a fenced-in garden. That way, if something bad happened, as her father liked to
say about what to do with their money, with their savings, you didn't have all
your eggs in one basket.