"C M Kornbluth - Virginia UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Mr. Witz said implacably, "Our decent, money-fearing girls wouldn't have anything to do with a dirty plutophobe like you, young Coogler. If only your poor father had put through the trust fund in timeЧwell, thank Heaven he's not alive to

Хee this day. But we won't kill you, young Coogler. It is not within our power to cause the death of a billionaire as if he were an animal or mere human being. What we can and will do is quarantine you. In Virginia."

This sounded like a rank non sequitur to Bunny until they look him to the Museum and trundled out a one-man space

Хhip invented early in 1923 by a Herr Rudolf Grenzbach of Czernovitz, Upper Silesia, whose body had been found in Lower Silesia later that year.

Officers of the Fourth PA.A.A.F. loaded him into the bomblike contrivance over his spirited protest and pre-set the course. Virginia, it seemed, was an asteroid rather than die neighboring state. They fired the rockets- and Bunny was on his way.

Four years later Mr. Witz and Mr. Briggs conferred again. Terhaps," said Mr. Witz,
They tuned in the asteroid Virginia on another suppressed fcvention. "Young Coogler," Briggs said into the microphone. TWs is Briggs. We wish to know whether you've come to your senses and are ready to take your place in societyЧours, d course."

There squawked over the loud-speaker the voice of Bunny. "1 say, what was that. No, not now, not for a second please. Where did that voice come from? Can you hear me, Mr. Btiggs?"

"I hear you," said Mr. Briggs.

"Extraordinary! Another invention, eh?"

"Yes," said Briggs. "I am calling, young Coogler, to learn whether you are properly contrite and if so to arrange for jour rescue."

"Rescue?" said the voice of Bunny. "Why, no thanks. That wont be necessary. Having a fine time here. They need me, yoo know. They love me for, ah, myself alone. Not the 4Mhed money. Double-dash the money, I say!"

Mr. Briggs, white to the lips, broke the connection.

"He meant you to do that," Mr. Witz remarked.

"I know. Let him rot there."

The quavery old curator had been listening, "On Virginia?" he asked tremulously. "You don't rot on Virginia, Don't you gentlemen know how it got its name?"

"Never bothered to find out," Mr. Briggs snapped. "Since you're bursting to tell us, you might as well."

The curator beamed. "They call it Virginia because it's the planetoid of virgins. The dangdest thing. Perpetual virgins. The Plutocratic Space Force says they've never seen anything like it, not on Mars, not on Callisto. Self-renewingЧthe dangdest thing!"

Mr. Briggs and Mr. Witz looked at each other. After a while Mr. Witz spoke.

"Bunny," he said reflectively. "Bunny. He was well named.

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