"Larry Niven - The Long ARM of Gil Hamilton UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Did he ever have visitors?"
The man's eyebrows went up. We'd drifted in the direction of his office, and I was close enough to read the name on the door:
JASPER MILLER, Manager. "Of course not," he said. "Anyone would have noticed that something was wrong."
"You meant he took the room for the express purpose of dying? You saw him once, and never again?"
"I suppose he might. . . no, wait." The manager thought deeply.
"No. He registered on a Thursday. I noticed the Belter tan, of
course. Then on Friday he went out. I happened to see him pass."
"Was that the day he got the droud? No, skip it, you wouldn't know that. Was it the last time you saw him go out?"
"Yes, it was."
"Then he could have had visitors late Thursday or early Friday." The manager shook his head, very positively.
"Why not?"
"You see, Mr. . . . uh. . ."
"Hamilton."
"We have a holocamera on every floor, Mr. Hamilton. It takes a picture of each tenant the first time he goes to his room, and then never again. Privacy is one of the services a tenant buys with his room." The manager drew himself up a little as he said this.
"For the same reason, the holocamera takes a picture of anyone who is not a tenant. The tenants are thus protected from unwarranted intrusions."
"And there were no visitors to any of the rooms on Owen's floor?"
"No, sir, there were not."
"Your tenants are a solitary bunch."
"Perhaps they are."
"I suppose a computer in the basement decides who is and is not a tenant."
"Of course."
"So for six weeks Owen Jennison sat alone in his room. In all that time he was totally ignored."
Miller tried to turn his voice cold, but he was too nervous. "We try to give our guests privacy. If Mr. Jennison had wanted help of any kind he had only to pick up the house phone. He could have called me, or the pharmacy, or the supermarket downstairs."
"Well, thank you, Mr. Miller. That's all I wanted to know. I wanted to know how Owen Jennison could wait six weeks to die while nobody noticed."
Miller swallowed. "He was dying all that time?"

"We had no way of knowing. How could we? I don't see how you can blame us."
"I don't either," I said, and brushed by. Miller had been close enough, so I had lashed out at him. Now I was ashamed. The man was perfectly right. Owen could have had help if he'd wanted it.
I stood outside, looking up at the jagged blue line of sky that showed between the tops of the buildings. A taxi floated into view, and I beeped my clicker at it, and it dropped.
I went back to ARM headquarters. Not to work-I could not have done any work, not under the circumstances-but to talk to Julie.
Julie. A tall girl, pushing thirty, with green eyes and long hair streaked red and gold. And two wide brown forceps marks above her right knee; but they weren't showing now. I looked into her office, through the one-way glass, and watched her at work.
She sat in a contour couch, smoking. Her eyes were closed. Sometimes her brow would furrow as she concentrated. Sometimes she would snatch a glance at the clock, then close her eyes again.
I didn't interrupt her. I knew the importance of what she was doing.
Julie. She wasn't beautiful. Her eyes were a little too far apart, her chin too square, her mouth too wide. It didn't matter. Because Julie could read minds.
She was the ideal date. She was everything a man needed. A year ago, the day after the night I killed my first man, I had been in a terribly destructive mood. Somehow Julie had turned it into a mood of manic exhilaration. We'd run wild through a supervised anarchy park, running up an enormous bill. We'd hiked five miles without going anywhere, facing backward on a downtown slidewalk. At the end we'd been utterly fatigued, too tired to think.
But two weeks ago it had been a warm, cuddly, comfortable night. Two people happy with each other; no more than that. Julie was what you needed, anytime, anywhere.
Her male harem must have been the largest in history. To pick up on the thoughts of a male ARM, Julie had to be in love with him. Luckily there was room in her for a lot of love. She didn't demand that we be faithful. A good half of us were married. But there had to be love for each of Julie's men, or Julie couldn't protect him.
She was protecting us now. Each fifteen minutes, Julie was making contact with a specific ARM agent. Psi powers are notoriously undependable, but Julie was an exception. If we got in a hole, Julie was always there to get us out . . . provided some idiot didn't interrupt her at work.
So I stood outside, waiting, with a cigarette in my imaginary hand.
The cigarette was for practise, to stretch the mental muscles. In its way my "hand" was as dependable as Julie's mind-touch, possibly because of its very limitations. Doubt your psi powers and they're gone. A rigidly defined third arm was more reasonable than some warlock ability to make objects move by wishing at them. I knew how an arm felt, and what it would do.
Why do I spend so much time lifting cigarettes? Well, it's the biggest weight I can lift without strain. And there's another reason. . . something taught me by Owen.
At ten minutes to fifteen, Julie opened her eyes, rolled out of the contour couch and came to the door. "Hi, Gil," she said sleepily. "Trouble?"
"Yah. A friend of mine just died. I thought you'd better know." I handed her a cup of coffee.
She nodded. We had a date tonight, and this would change its character. Knowing that, she probed lightly.
"My God!" she said, recoiling. "How . . . how horrible. I'm terribly sorry, Gil. Date's off, right?"
"Unless you want to join the ceremonial drunk."
She shook her head vigorously. "I didn't know him. It wouldn't be proper. Besides, you'll be wallowing in your own memories, Gil. A lot of them will be private. I'd cramp your style if you knew I was there to probe. Now if Homer Chandrasekhar were here, it'd be different."
"I wish he were. He'll have to throw his own drunk. Maybe with some of Owen's girls, if they're around."
"You know what I feel," she said.
"Just what I do."