"Keith Laumer - The Monitors" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

"Mr. Blondel," his smile had stiffened a trifle, "please let your fancy rest. We are precisely what
the Tersh Jetterax has already told you - - well- wishers to you and your people. My name is
Frokinil, and I hope we'll become good friends."
Blondel sat down gingerly. "What do you get out of all this?"
"The satisfaction of doing our duty."
"I mean, you, personally. What's your payoff? The High Command going to set you up as Duke
of Brooklyn, or King of New Jersey?"
"You're talking nonsense, Mr. Blondel." The grin was definitely glassy now. "I'm here to oversee
the testing program for the zone, and devise appropriate skill-distributions manifolds."
"Slave labor camps, eh?"
Frokinil tske d impatiently. "Mr. Blondel, can't you rid your mind of these grotesque
stereotypes? Surely you're too rational a man to be governed by mystical allegiances to symbols
that are violated daily, publicly, without so much as a blush!"
"Frankly, the sight of you fellows walking around on our real estate without a passport seems
to arouse some instincts I didn't know I had."
Frokinil leaned forward, preparing for a cozy intellectual discussion. "Very well. To recognize
one's own bias is the beginning of insight. You act from an instinctive impulse to perpetuate a
regime which has the sanction of tribal tradition." He stood briskly and motioned to the metal
globe on the stand.
"Just step here a moment, Mr. Blondel, if you will. I'd like you to consider some facts." Blondel
complied.
"Consider your typical elementary school ... " Frokinil flicked his fingers at the machine and its
surface glazed, became milky; a dazzling glow sprang up from it. Blondel blinked and suddenly
was standing just inside the door of what was obviously an elementary school room, with cut- outs
of witches and pumpkins pasted on the windows, and rows of children with faces as bright as toy
lanterns sitting with their hands folded, chanting raggedly together:
" ... one- nation-inadvisable- with- liberty-and-justice- for- all."
"All right, you, Walter. I got my eye on you," a lumpybodied little woman with an untidy bun of
gray hair said in a voice like a shutter on a haunted house. "You just set quiet today, or you'll be
back down to Mr. Funder's office quicker'n a nigger'll steal whiskey."
A small boy hung his head and glanced sideways, left-right.
"All right, now." The woman thumbed a bra strap back in place and yanked down a wall map.
"Get out yer jogerfy books and turn to page nineteen." She picked up a pointer and peered at the
big colored map of the United States; her lips moved silently. The kids thumped books, flipped
pages, fired a couple of fast paper wads. The lady turned and stabbed with the pointer.
"Lucilla, tell 'em the names of the capitals of the states." A small girl with tight braids promptly
chirped: "Muntgum, Reefeenix, L'il Rock ... "
"This prototype of wisdom and aesthetics is placed before these impressionable young minds
and charged with the duty of drilling them in rotes." Frokinil's voice came out of the a by ir
Blondel's right ear. "The only useful training being acquired here is some small skill in ballistics."
The schoolroom faded into a misty glow that changed shape like smoke cloud and congealed
into a wide, airy stretch of green grass under big trees. Groups of half a dozen or so children were
scattered across the park, each accompanied by an adult in a toga. Some of them seemed to be
examining the bark of trees, or clumps of leaves on low branches; others were kneeling, poking in
the earth. One group was gathered around a table, fiddling with glass retorts and tubes.
 "Under the new order," Frokinil said, "teachers who have devoted their lives to training for the
practice of this vital profession work to instill an understanding of the realities of nature and art as
the basis for true wisdom ... "
"Sounds tougher than the three R's," Blondel contributed. "But will it pay union scale?"
" ... Of course," Frokinil was ploughing on, "not all human minds are fully functional. There will