"Donald Moffitt - Mechanical Sky 1 - Crescent in the Sky" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moffitt Donald)

mullah glaring at him and gulped before going on. "My work is in the stablesтАФ mostly things like
propagating mounts for the Horse Guard. The Emir insists on them being uniform, and he changes their look
frequently. Earlier this year, for example, we got out a rush order for one hundred duplicates of a hoofed
albino that had caught his fancy. Of course we often craft a special order for some high palace official, like
when the Vizier wanted a peacock that could sing and we provided a flock of peacock-nightingale chimerae
for his garden, but mostly it's just dull, ordinary work." He did not mention the special job the Clonemaster
had entrusted him with.
Mr. Najib raised a heavy eyelid. "You're not involved in the cloning of spare parts for . . . important
functionaries, then?" Everybody knew he was being too discreet to refer to the Emir directly.
"Oh, no," Hamid-Jones demurred. "Medical cloning is the province of the Palace Clonemaster."
"New hearts for overweight eunuchs," Kareem said irrever-ently. "Livers and lungs for faithful courtiers.
The occasional royal brain cell."
"No," Hamid-Jones said shortly, refusing to rise to the bait. It was common knowledge that the Emir kept
himself on this side of senility through periodic cortical transplants. His head was close to two hundred
years old and showed it, and one day it would finally give out, despite the succession of youthful bod-ies.
The hotel clerk persisted with bright malice. "And you're not involved in any of the Emir's pet projects,
like the research program for genetically altering women for submissiveness and nonsentience?"
That, too, was common knowledge. It was one of the Emir's more unpleasant ideas. The first, unfortunate
project managers had tried to point out the immense difficulty of stabilizing sex-linked characteristics and
limiting them to genes on the X chro-mosome, and the fact that a change in human heredity such as the one
contemplated by the Emir would end up affecting the entire population, both male and female. Computer
simulations had borne them out. But the Emir was simply unable to grasp the notion and had executed the
bearers of the bad tidings for willful disobedience. The subsequent project managers had been hacks who
strung the Emir along and brought him hopeful tid-bits from time to time. Mullahs like Mr. Faqoosh didn't
last long around the Emir either; those who opposed such tampering with the clay of Allah had been done
away with and replaced by tame religious authorities who were adept at finding theological justification in
the Koran for the Emir's wishes.
"We don't work with human genetic material in our depart-ment," Hamid-Jones said stiffly. "Of course on
great state oc-casions, like the decapitation ceremony tomorrow, my chief, the Clonemaster of the Royal
Stables, the noble Hassan bin Fahd al-Hejjaj, will be present as a matter of professional courtesy. But I
myself have never been within the inner palace precincts."
"Come, come, Abdul, you are too modest," Mr. Najib said insincerely.
It was the taciturn Dr. Daud, unexpectedly, who got the con-versation back on track a second time, to
everyone's relief, "Is-sayid Fahti is right," he ventured timidly. "The Emir doesn't need to make another hajj.
The Sultan of Alpha Centauri is his only serious rival for the Caliphate, and the Sultan will never make the
hajj. He doesn't dare to leave his kingdom for the length of time it would take."
He gathered his frowsy robes about him and shrunk within himself again.
The others nodded agreement. "Alpha Centauri is the closest of all the kingdoms that lie beyond the sun,"
Mr. Najib said, taking up the theme, "but the round trip still takes ten years, even at speeds close to that of
light. Any ruler would be stupid to leave his affairs unattended for that length of time. One cannot rule by
radio, especially when the radio message takes almost as long as the physical journey. Why, the Centauran
Sultanate could be overthrown by an usurper and the event not even known for four years!"
"Yes, and how much truer that is for the furthest kingdoms, like Beta Hydri," Mr. Fahti put in. "Intrigues
at home would run wild. Time may shrink for the travelerтАФAllah be praised for his miraclesтАФbut whole
new dynasties could spring up while a ruler absented himself. That is why those who hold power in their
handsтАФmay God forgive them for their neglect of His in-junctionsтАФare precisely the ones who never visit
our sun to perform the hajj, save for a few sainted exceptions, like the sovereign of Tau CetiтАФmay God
ease his way to ParadiseтАФwho renounced his throne and came to Mecca as a simple pilgrim in the winter
of his years."
"And that is why Islam is at peace, brothers," the gray-bearded pensioner, Khaled, said sagely. "Allah has