"Judith Merril - Project Nursemaid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Merril Judith)

PROJECT NURSEMAID

I

THE GIRL IN the waiting room was very young, and very ill at ease. She closed
the magazine in her lap, which she had not been read-ing, and leaned back in the
chair, determined to relax. It was an interview, nothing more. If they asked too many
questions or if anything happened that looked like trouble, she could just leave and
not come back.
And then what ... ?
They wouldn't, anyhow. The nurse had told her. She didn't even have to give her
right name. It didn't matter. And they wouldn't check up. All they cared about was if
you could pass the physical.
That's what the nurse had said, but she didn't like the nurse, and she wished now
that she had bought a wedding ring after all. Thirty-nine cents in the five-and-ten, and
she had stood there looking at them, and gone away again. Partly it was knowing the
salesgirl would think she was going to use it for a hotel, or some-thing like that.
Mostly, it was justтАФwrong. A ring on your finger was supposed to mean something,
even for thirty-nine cents. If she had to lie with words, she could, but not with ...
That was silly. She should have bought it. Only what a ring meant was one thing, and
what Charlie had meant was something else.
Everybody's got to learn their lesson sooner or later, honey, the nurse had said.
But it wasn't like that, she wanted to say. Only it was. It was for Charlie, so what
difference did it make what she thought?
'I still say, it's a hell of a way to run an Army.'
'You could even be right,' said the Colonel, and both of them smiled. Two men
who find themselves jointly responsible for a vitally important bit of insanity, who
share a strong, if reluctant, mutual respect for each other's abilities, and who disagree
with each other about almost everything, will find themselves smiling frequently, he
had discovered.
The General, who was also a politician, stopped smiling and added, 'Besides
which, it's downright immoral! These girlsтАФkids! You'd think...'
The Colonel, who was also a psychologist, stopped smiling too. The General had
a daughter very much the same age as the one who was waiting outside right now.
'It's one hell of a way to run an Army.'
The Colonel nodded. His concept of morality did not coincide precisely with the
General's, but his disapproval was not one whit less vehement. He had already
expressed his views in a paper rather dramatically entitled 'Brave New World??? '
which dealt with the predictable results of regimentation in prenatal and infantile
conditioning. The manuscript, neatly typed, occupied the rearmost position in a
folder of personal correspondence in his bottom desk drawer, and he had no more
intention of express-ing his view now to the General than he had of submitting the
paper for publication. He had discovered recently that he could disapprove of
everything he was doing, and still desire to defend his right to do it; beyond doubt, it
was better than supervising psych checks at some more conventional recruiting
depot.
 'A hell of a way,' he agreed, with sincerity, and glanced mean-ingfully at his
appointment pad.
Thursday was apparently not the General's day for accepting hints gracefully from
junior officers; he sat down in the visitor's chair, and glared. Then he sighed.