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

be many tasks for which mental defectives are suited ... "
The sunny lawn whiffed out of sight, and Blondel was blinking at a long bare room where a row
of slackfaced youngsters in loose white garments like flour- bag nightgowns sat on stools bleating
and flapping their arms at a camera. A flashbulb washed the walls with bluewhite; one of the
inmates fell off his stool. A grim- looking old woman in stiff grays yanked him up and jerked him
back in line.
"Your institutions for these unfortunates are little more than zoos," Frokinil stated. "Those few
capable of absorbing the skills of table waiting or fruit picking are released on society to make
their own way, to breed freely, reinfecting the stock with their defective genes. Under the new
system, they will receive appropriate training, and will live carefully- controlled and supervised
lives - - without the opportunity of propagating their tragedies."
"Kind of tough on the free idiots of the world," Blondel noted.
"Consider the care given the indigent normal under the old system," Frokinil bored on. The
gloomy institutional scene faded and they were standing by a long desk under a sign that said
ADMISSIONS. A thin little woman with a caved- in face and a paper corsage was shaking her head
at a big, stolid- looking fellow with swarthy skin and an acne- scarred face. He was supporting a
barrel- shaped woman with one arm. Her head lolled against his shoulder. A clock on the wall
showed two A.M.
" ... owe the hospital for the last confinement, Mr. Orosco," the sharp- faced woman was saying.
"If you can't make advance payment, you'll have to take her elsewhere."
"You goddam crazy, woman!" the man yelled. "Rachel's gonna have the baby right now, maybe
in one minute! Where's a doctor?" He slammed a fist down on the counter- top. "I gotta have a
doctor for Rachel, I got to have him now, son of a bitch ... where's a doctor!"
The little woman whirled to a side door back of the counter and met a husky young attendant
coming in.
"He's cursing me, Timmy! The damn wetback -- "
The swarthy man was moving toward a door marked NO ADMITTANCE, dragging the woman
with him. He was swearing loudly in Spanish. The attendant ran to intercept him. They grappled,
and the woman fell. The man stooped to her, and the attendant set himself and hit him a terrific
blow back of the ear. He went to his hands and knees - -
Blondel took a step and a hand caught his arm. The scene faded and dissolved into bright mist.
"Calmly, Mr. Blondel," Frokinil chided. "This is merely a recording, you know."
"You're nuts," Blondel said. "Nothing like that happens in our hospitals. Doctors take an oath --
"
"This scene, or variations of it, takes place hundreds of times every day in virtually every
hospital on the continent. Not only are the sick and injured turned away if they fail to show
adequate financial resources, but malpractice -- and I use the term within the context of your own
present- day medical knowledge - - accounts for approximately thirty deaths per day, while
hospital- acquired infections account for a further -- "
"OK, the hospitals are overloaded; but we're building more."
 "Not as rapidly as the population is increasing. Few public facilities are keeping pace with
births. And yet no control whatever is exercised over the latter."
"There'll be legislation on that in a few more years - - "
"You don't have a few more years, Mr. Blondel. And it would have been a very long time before
a fully effective program would have been initiated. Meanwhile, your slums were proliferating ... "
Blondel grabbed for support; he seemed to be floating in m air, looking down on a narrow,
id-
grimy street festooned with fire escapes and clotheslines. " ... your courts' backlogs increase ... "
The slum street dissolved into an old- fashioned, high-ceilinged room packed with spectators,
lawyers, bailiffs, cops, bondsmen, defendants, and relatives. A querulous-looking judge perched