"C M Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl - Critical Mass (SS Collection) UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Now will you please tell me how we're going to get off this lousy planet?
Keep firmly hi mind, Chief, that we're not com-plainers. You don't have a better crew anywhere in the Galaxy and you know it. We've complied with the Triple Directive, every time, on every planet we've
explored. Remember Arcturus XII? But this time we're having trouble. After all, look at the disproportion in mass. And take a look at the reports we've sent in. These are pretty miserable sentients, Chief.
So will you let us know, please, if there has ever been an authorized exception to Directive Two? I don't mean we aren't going to bust a link to comply- if we can-but frankly, at this moment, I don't see how.
And we need to get out of here fast.
Garigolli
Although it was a pretty morning in June, with the blossoms dropping off the catalpa trees and the algae blooming in the twelve-foot plastic pool, I was not enjoying either my breakfast or the morning mail.
The letter from the lawyer started, the way letters from lawyers do, with
RE: GUDSELL VS. DUPOIR
and went on to advise Dupoir (that's me, plus my wife and our two-year-old son Butchie) that unless a certified check arrived in Undersigned's office before close of business June llth (that was tomorrow) in the amount of $14,752.03, Undersigned would be compelled to institute Proceedings at once.
I showed it to my wife, Shirl, for lack of anything better to do.
She read it and nodded intelligently. "He's really been very patient with us, considering," she said. "I suppose this is just some more lawyer-talk?"
It had occurred to me, for a wild moment, that maybe she had $14,752.03 in the old sugar bowl as a surprise for me, but I could see she didn't. I shook my head. "This means they take the house," I said. "I'm not mad any more. But you won't sign anything for your brother after this, will you?"
"Certainly not,".she said, shocked. "Shall I put that letter hi the.paper-recycling bin?"
"Not just yet," I said, taking off my glasses and hearing aid. Shirl knows perfectly well that I can't hear her when my glasses are off, but she kept on talking anyway as she wiped the apricot puree off Butchie's chin, rescued the milk glass, rinsed the plastic infant-food jar and dropped it in the "plastics" carton, rinsed the lid and put it in the "metals" box and poured my coffee. We are a very ecological household. It astonishes me how good Shirl is at things like that, considering.
I waved fruit flies away from the general direction of my orange juice and put my glasses back on in time to catch her asking, wonderingly, "What would they do with our house? I mean, I'm not a demon decorator like Ginevra Freedman. I just like it comfortable and neat."
"They don't exactly want the house," I explained. "They just want the money they'll get after they sell it to somebody else." Her expression cleared at once. Shirl always likes to understand things.
I sipped my coffee, fending off Butchie's attempt to grab the cup, and folded the letter and laid it across my knees like an unsheathed scimitar, ready to taste the blood of the giaour, which it kind of was. Butchie indicated that he would like to eat it, but I didn't see that that would solve the problem. Although I didn't have any better way of solving it, at that.
I finished the orange juice, patted Butchie's head and, against my better judgment, gave Shirl the routine kiss on the nose.
"Well," she said, "I'm glad that's settled. Isn't it nice the way the mail comes first thing in the morning now?"
I said it was very nice and left for the bus but, really, I could have been just as happy if Undersigned's letter had come any old time. The fruit flies were pursuing me all the way down the street. They seemed to think they could get nourishment out" of me, which
suggested that fruit flies were about equal in intelligence to brothers-in-law. It was not a surprising thought. I had thought it before.
Garigolli to Home Base
Chief,
The mobility of this Host is a constant pain in the spermatophore. Now he's gone off on the day-cycle early, and half the crew are still stuck in his domicile. Ultimate Matrix knows how they'll handle it if we don't get back before they run out of group empathy.
You've got no reason to take that tone, Chief. We're doing a good job and you know it. "Directive One: To remain undetected by sentients on planet being explored." A hundred and forty-four p.g., right? They don't have a clue we're here, although I concede that that part is fairly easy, since they are so much bigger than we are. "Directive Three: Subject to Directives One and Two, to make a complete study of geographic, demographic, ecological and cognitic factors and to transmit same to Home Base." You actually complimented us on those! It's only Directive Two that's giving us trouble.
We're still trying, but did it ever occur to you that maybe these people don't deserve Directive Two?
Garigolli
I loped along the jungle trail to the bus stop, calculating with my razor-sharp mind that the distance from the house was almost exactly 14,752.03 centimeters. As centimeters it didn't sound bad at all. As money, $14,752.03 was the kind of sum I hadn't written down since Commercial Arithmetic in P.S. 98.
I fell in with Barney Freedman, insurance underwriter and husband of Ginevra, the Demon Decorator. "Whatever became of Commercial Arithmetic?" I asked him. "Like ninety-day notes for fourteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-two dollars and three cents at six percent simple interest? Although why anybody would be dumb enough to lend anybody money
for ninety days beats me. If he doesn't have it now, he won't have it in ninety days."
"You're in some kind of trouble."
"Shrewd guess."
"So what did Shirl do now?"
"She co-signed a note for her brother," I said. "When he went into the drying-out sanitarium for the gold treatment. They wouldn't take him on his own credit, for some reason. They must have gold-plated nun. He said the note was just a formality, so Shirl didn't bother me with it."
We turned the corner. Barney said, "Ginerva didn't bother me once when the telephone company-"
"So when Shirt's brother got undrunk," I said, "he told her not to worry about it and went to California. He thought he might catch on with the movies."
"Did he?"
"He didn't even catch cold with the movies. Then they sent us the bill. Fourteen thou-well, they had it all itemized. Three nurses. Medication. Suite. Occupational Therapy. Professional services. Hydrother-apy. Group counseling. One-to-one counseling. Limousine. Chauffeur for limousine. Chauffeur's helper for limousine. Chauffeur's helper's hard-boiled eggs for lunch. Salt for chauffeur's helper's hard-boiled-"
"You're getting hysterical," Barney said. "You mean he just skipped?" We were at the bus stop, with a gaggle of other prosperous young suburbanites.
I said, "Like a flat rock on a pond. So we wrote him, and of course the letters came back. They didn't fool around, the Institute for Psychosomatic Adjustment didn't."
"That's a pretty name."
"I telephoned a man up there to explain, when we got the first letter. He didn't sound pretty. Just tired. He said my wife shouldn't sign things without reading them. And he said if his house was-something about joint tenancy in fee simple, he would break
his wife's arm if she was the type that signed things without reading them, and keep on rebreaking it until she stopped. Meanwhile they had laid out a lot of goods and services in good faith, and what was I going to do about it?"
The bus appeared on the horizon, emitting jet trails of Diesel smog. We knotted up by the sign. "So I told him I didn't know," I said, "but I know now. Fll get sued, that's what I'll do. The Dupoirs always have an answer to every problem."
Conversation was suspended for fifteen seconds of scrimmage while we entered the bus. Barney and I were lucky. We wound up with our heads jammed affectionately together, not too far from a window that sucked in Diesel fumes and fanned them at us. I could see the fruit flies gamely trying to get back to my ear, but they were losing the battle.
Barney said, "Hey. Couldn't you sell your house to somebody you trusted for a dollar, and then they couldn't-"
"Yes, they could. And then we'd both go to jail. I asked a guy in our legal department."
"Huh." The bus roared on, past knots of other prosperous young suburbanites who waved their fists at us as we passed. "How about this. I hope you won't take this the wrong way. But couldn't there be some angle about Shirl being, uh, not exactly competent to sign any kind of-"
"I asked about that too, Barney. No hope. ShirPs never been hospitalized, she's never been to a shrink, she runs a house and a husband and a small boy just fine. Maybe she's a little impulsive. But a lot of people are impulsive, the man said."