"Nancy Kress - Steamship Soldier on the Information Front" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

immediately, including a climate projection for thirty years. Desert wars had been lost before
to climate.
He caught a transatlantic flight home. The Brazilian engagement had been postponed.
Cathy had gone to Los Angeles -- the Tunis trip had once more scuttled their rendezvous --
with Suzette, who had a major skating competition. Charlie was on a nature hike in Yosemite
with the commercial edu-group Mrs. Canning subscribed him to. The leased apartment in
Aspen -- no, Aspen had been cancelled, and anyway it was Oakland this month because of
Suzette's competition schedule -- would be empty.
The little Tunisian robots had looked like rectangular suitcases, not cylindrical tin cans.
Nonetheless, Allan called Skaka Gupta from the transatlantic flight. She was in Berne. Allan
rerouted himself to Boston anyway. He didn't like coming home to a new leased place with no
one else there.
At Novation he was met by a flustered young man, no more than twenty-three, in jeans,
leather sweater, and the ubiquitous sneakers set with tiny flashing mirrors. Allan recognized
the type: a software expert. Awkward, bright as hell, and secretly scornful of "bean
counters." No, that wasn't the term anymore: "cashware clods." Allan smiled icily and looked
slightly bored.
"Paul Sanderson? Allan Haller. You're going to give me Skaka's pitch, right?" Skaka had left
no data for a new pitch, as far as Allan knew.
Paul Sanderson looked confused. "Yes ... no, I mean, she didn't ... I was just going to show
you what the bots can do now."
"Fine, fine. But keep the jargon to a minimum." A pre-emptive strike, with the force of an
order. Sanderson would either get huffy or meek, unsure how his boss would want Allan
treated.
He got meek. "Sure. Well, uh, this way."
The robots in Prime-Eight One seemed to Allan slightly less uncoordinated, although they
still, wandered hopelessly. Campbell's Tomorrow Soup lunged at a chip but missed it.
Sanderson dawdled past the enclosure, peering through the plastic, fidgeting. Why? To cover
his own edginess, Allan flipped over his tie and checked his PID.
The icons all vibrated so fast he could barely see they were there.
"You've created a superstrength data field here!" he exclaimed, and as Sanderson turned
toward him with a grin of embarrassment, Allan understood. "You have, haven't you? You've
made the whole facility into a microwave field that lets the Prime Eight Two bots interface
directly with the Net. You retrofitted them with the communications software to do that."
Sanderson nodded sheepishly. "I know regs say I should have warned you before you
stepped into the field, but it's not dangerous in such short exposure, really it's not. And your
own com devices will return to normal functioning just as soon as we -- "
"I'm not concerned about either my devices or my health!" Allan snapped. "But Skaka
promised to keep me abreast of any major changes in the research!"
"Well, there haven't really been any," Sanderson said. "Although we'd hoped ... but so far,
nothing has changed. The bots just go on anticipating the chip-release schedule and -- "
"Is Prime-Eight One wired to the Net, too? Or aren't you going to tell me that, either?"
Sanderson looked shocked. "No, of course it's not wired. If we don't do it at exactly the
same point as we did this group, we'd compromise the research design!"
"As opposed to compromising your investors' confidence," Allan snapped. "Fine. Tell Ms.
Gupta to call me when she returns. And please be advised that I retain the right to bring in my
own evaluators here, since I'm obviously not being told everything voluntarily."
"Mr. Haller, please don't think that because -- "
"That's all," Allan snapped, turned, and left.
Back in his car, he asked himself why he was so angry. He owned a piece of Novation, yes,