"mayflies04" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

The passengers felt that since none of their past tactics had succeeded, it was time for some new ones.
Hence Irma Tracer.
She was bones in a tattered, food-stained bag. She was wild-eyed, frizzy-haired, and pathetic. She was trying to keep a detached wall-unit from the glistening servo that meant to take it away. She was the catalyst.
The servo allowed her to beat on it without reproof, it let her pointy shoes thud against its undercarriage, and it would not be brutal because CentComp could knock her out if need be.
A door opened. A male voice, deep and drug-blurred, shouted, "Hey, leave her alone!"
"What's happening, George?" came a querulous female voice.
The man leaned his husky shoulders against the doorframe. "Some servo's clearing crazy Irma."
"Well, stop it. George."
He shrugged nonchalantly, but felt . . . well, a touch exasperated with his wife, for telling him to get involved in someone else's problems, but also . . . a glow, a pleasure at hearing her as good as say she thought he could handle a servo. So he squared his big shoulders and set his jaw and stalked toward the combatants.
"Now, Ms. Tracer," the servo was saying, in CC's familiar monotone, "you must permit me to-"
"Fiend!" she shrieked. "Foul inhuman beast! Let go of me, let go of this, let go-"
Inside the suite, George's excited wife viphoned her neighbor: "Thelma, there's a fight in the hall-Crazy Irma and a servo-George is getting into it."
Thelma's door popped open just as George laid a large restraining hand on the servo. "Stop it,"" he ordered.
The servo didn't even swivel its turret-the eyes in the ceiling told it who, what, and where. It shook off George's arm and made a quick, but deliberately non-threatening, grab at the sensor-head.
"I said stop it," growled George.
Other doors opened.
"STOP IT!"
"Mr. Mandell," said the servo, "please, this is none of your affair."
"Goddammit," he roared, really worked up now, soaring high as a kite on adrenaline and volume and rightness, "goddammit, this is a human being you're effing here, and I won't have any of it!"
"The servo," whispered a woman to her slack-jawed neighbor, "was assaulting Crazy Irma."
"Raping her?" gasped the neighbor.
"I guess so, didn't you hear George?"
"My God!" and she whirled for the viphone in her living room-her mother just had to hear that.
Meanwhile George had forced his body between the disputants. "Dammit, servo, learn your place-let go of this lady."
"Mr. Mandell, if you do not remove yourself immediately. I shall be forced to do it for you."
"Yeah? Well, you just try it, bot."
Deftly the servo slid a tentacle under George's right armpit, lifted him off his feet, and set him down two meters away. "Please remain there, sir."
But Mandell was mad. All his friends were watching; they'd seen him shunted aside like a kid. He blew up. He ran to his bedroom, found the metal pipe that the militia had issued him in lieu of a better weapon, and raced back. Without a word he swung viciously.
The servo parried the blow, ripped the pipe away from Mandell, and flicked it at the nearest disposal unit. Mandell's hands wrapped themselves around the servo's turret. As it tried to dislodge them, three men swarmed to Mandell's rescue. Their weight overturned the servo. Somebody else hurried out with a laser-drill and jammed it against the machine's control center . . . There was a hum, and a flash-and other servos spun around the corner.
Battle was joined. Within minutes the entire ship had heard of it.
And all but a few participated.
"C'mon, Dad," pleaded Bruce Holier Loukakes, aware that he was behaving immaturely for a twenty-two-year-old, but too excited about the confrontation with CentComp to care much, "let's go help them."
"No," boomed his father, Marshall Murphy Loukakes. Eight-five years old and bearded like a biblical prophet, he sat in his armchair, back rigid. "These people are wrong, Bruce. They will only clear themselves."
"But, Dad, there are humans-neighbors, friends, even relatives-out there dying!" His translucent cheeks flushed with emotion.
"I doubt that," said Loukakes dryly. "CC wouldn't want to trim them."
"But it is!"
"CC!"
"Mr. Loukakes?"
"Are any of the people attacking you dying?"
"Three have so far, sir, but of heart failure brought on by excitement."
"Are you doing your best not to eft anyone more than you have to?"
"Yes, sir." Surprisingly, considering it was a machine, there was weariness in its voice.
"You see, Bruce?"
"So what do we do?" As he conceded, he realized he hadn't really wanted to knuckle it up with a servo. Not when he was wearing his best blue toga.
"We wait, in here, until everything's over."
"Mr. Loukakes?" interrupted the wall speaker.
"Yes, CC?"
"Do you really mean that?"
"Yes, I do."
"I see." There was a pause. "Then I had best advise you not to drink the water-I've added, uh, a sedative to it to calm these folks down."