"C M Kornbluth - The Mindworm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

TheMindworm



C. M.Kornbluth




TheMindworm



THE HANDSOME j. g. and the pretty nurse held out against it as long as they reasonably could, but
blue Pacific water, languid tropical nights, the low atoll dreaming on the horizonтАФand the complete
absence of any other nice young people for company on the small, uncomfortable parts boat-did their
work. On June 30th they watched through dark glasses as the dazzling thing burst over the fleet and the
atoll. Her manicured hand gripped his arm in excitement and terror. Unfelt radiation sleeted through their
loins.



A storekeeper-third-class namedBielaski watched the young couple with more interest than he showed
in Test Able. After all, he had twenty-five dollars riding on the nurse. That night he lost it to a chiefbosun's
mate who had backed the j. g.
In the course of time, the careless nurse was discharged under conditions other than honorable. The j. g.,
who didn't like to put things in writing, phoned her all the way from Manila to say it was a



damnedshame. When her gratitude gave way to specific inquiry, their overseas connection went bad and
he had to hang up.



She had a child, a boy, turned it over to a foundling home, and vanished from his life into a series of
good jobs andfinally marriage.



The boy grew up stupid, puny and stubborn, greedy and miserable. To the home's hilarious young
athletics director he suddenly said: "You hate me. You think I make the rest of the boys look bad."



The athletics director blustered and laughed, and later told the doctor over coffee: "I watch myself
around the kids. They're sharpтАФ they catch a look or a gesture and it's like a blow in the face to them, I
know that, so I watch myself. So how did he know?"