"C M Kornbluth - The Education Of Tigress Mccardle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

THE EDUCATION OF TIGRESS MCCARDLE



C. M.Kornbluth




WITH THE UNANIMITY THAT HAD ALWAYS CHARACTER-

izedhis fans, as soon as they were able to vote they swept him into office as President of the United
States. Four years later the 28th Amendment was ratified, republican institutions yielded gracefully to the
usages of monarchy, and King Purvis Ireigned in the land.

Perhaps even then all would have gone well if it had not been for another major entertainment
personage, the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, that veritable personification of the Yellow Peril, squatting like
some great evil spider in the center of his web of intrigue. The insidious doctor appeared to have so much
fun on his television series, what with a lovely concubine to paw him and a dwarf to throw

knives, that it quite turned the head of Gerald Wang, a hitherto-peaceable antique dealer of San
Fntncisco . Gerald decided that he too would become a veritable personification of the Yellow Peril, and
that he too would squat like some great evil spider in the center of a web of intrigue, and that he would
reallyaccomplish something. He found it remarkably easy since nobody believed in the Yellow Peril any
more. He grew a mandarin mustache, took to uttering cryptic quotations from the sages;,and was
generally addressed as "doctor" by the members of his organization, though he made no attempt to
practice medicine. His wife drew the line at the concubine, but Gerald had enough to keep him busy with
hispereonifying and squatting.

His great coup occurred in 1986 when^ after patient years of squatting and plotting, one of his most
insidious ideas reached the attention of His Majesty via a recommendationridered onto the annual
population-resources report. The recommendation was implemented as the Parental Qualifications
Program, or P.Q.P., by royal edict. "Owrackonthet'llmake ummahnd they P's and Q's," quipped His
Majesty, and everybody laughed heartilyтАФbut none more heartily than the insidious Dr. Wang, who was
present in disguise as Tuner of the RoyalGit -tar.

A typical PQP operation (at least when judged typical by the professor of Chronoscope History
Seminar 201 given by Columbia University in 2756a.d., who ought to know) involved GeorgeMcCardle
...

GeorgeMcCardle -had agooddeal with his girl friend, TigressMoone . He dined her and bought her
pretties and had the freedom of the bearskin rug in front of her wood-burning fireplace. He had beaten
the game; he had achieved a delightful combination of bachelor irresponsibility and marital gratification.

"George," Tigress said thoughtfully one day ... so they got married.

With prices what they were in 1998, she kept her job, of courseтАФat least until she again said
thoughtfully: "George ..."

She then had too much time on her hands; it was absurd for a healthy young woman to pretend that