"Nancy Kress - Beggars 2 - Beggars and Choosers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

my life. I know how that sounds. There's nothing about the start
of my service with the Genetic Standards Enforcement Agency
that doesn't sound ridiculous. Why not start with Stephanie's dog?
It brings a certain satiric panache to the story. I could dine out
on it for months.
If, of course, anyone were ever going to dine out again.
Panache is such a perishable quality.
Stephanie brought her dog to my apartment in the Bayview
Security Enclave on a Sunday morning in July. The day before,
I'd bought pots of new flowers from BioForms in Oakland and
they cascaded over the terrace railing, a riot of blues much more
varied than the colors of San Francisco Bay, six stories below.
Cobalt, robin's egg, aquamarine, azure, cyan, turquoise, cerulean.
I lay on my terrace chaise, eating anise cookies and studying my
flowers. The gene geniuses had shaped each blossom into a soft
fluttery tube with a domed end. The blossoms were quite long.
Essentially, my terrace frothed with flaccid, blue, vegetable
penises. David had moved out a week ago.
"Diana," Stephanie said, through the Y-energy shield spanning
the space between my open French doors. "Knock knock."
"How'd you get into the apartment?" I said, mildly annoyed.
I hadn't given Stephanie my security code. I didn't like her enough.
"Your code's broken. It's on the police net. Thought you'd
like to know." Stephanie was a cop. Not with the district police,
which was rough and dirty work down among the Livers. Not our
Stephanie. She owned a company that furnished patrol 'bots for
enclave security. She designed the 'bots herself. Her firm, which
was spectacularly successful, held contracts with a sizable number
of San Francisco enclaves, although not with mine. Telling me my
code was on the 'bot net was her ungraceful way of needling me
because my enclave used a different police force.
I lounged back on my chaise and reached for my drink. The
closest blue flowers yearned toward my hand.
"You're giving them an erection," Stephanie said, walking
through the French doors. "Oh, anise cookies! Mind if I give one
to Katous?"
The dog followed her from the cool dimness of my apartment
and stood blinking and sniffing in the bright sunshine. It was
clearly, aggressively, illegally genemod. The Genetic Standards
Enforcement Agency may allow fanciful tinkering with flowers,
but not with animal phyla higher than fish. The rules are very clear,
backed up by court cases whose harsh financial penalties make
them even clearer. No genemods that cause pain. No genemods
that create weaponry, in its broadest definition. No genemods that
"alter external appearance or basic internal functioning such that
a creature deviates significantly from other members of not only
its species but also its breed." A collie may pace and single-foot,
but it better still look like Lassie.
And never, never, never any genemod that is inheritable. No-
body wants another fiasco like the Sleepless. Even my penile flow-