"Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack - Starchild 01-03 - The Starchild Trilogy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pohl Frederick)

But this one was sumptuously furnished. It seemed to be a woman's dressing room. It was white and gold, with ivory-backed brushes and combs on a little vanity table, before a gold-rimmed ova! mirror. The stairs, Ryeland guessed, were for the use of the personal maid to whoever used this room.
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And he heard someone singing,
Ryeland took a deep breath and called out: "Hello there! Do you hear me? I'm looking for a doctor!"
There wasn't any answer. The singing went on, a girl's voice, clear and attractive; she was singing for her own amusement. Every once in a while she would go back and repeat a phrase, pause, then start again aimlessly. And under the singing was a sort of musical cooing accompaniment
Ryeland looked at Oporto, shrugged and pushed the door open.
They looked into a room that was green and silver. Its walls swam with fading, shifting green light. In the center was a round silver tub, six feet across, partly recessed into the floor. From the mouths of carved crystal dolphins tiny jets of perfumed warm water leaped and splashed, in a foam of bubbles, into the tub.
And above the thick blanket of foam protruded one knee, the head and the arms of the most beautiful girl Ryeland had ever seen.
"IЧI beg your pardon," he said, awkward and disturbed.
She turned her head and looked at him calmly. On her wet, white shoulders were perched a pair ofЧbirds? No. They were shaped like birds, like doves, but they were made of metal; their feathers were fine silver scales; their eyes were red-lit jewels. The metal things moved restlessly, as the little eyes poked hotly at Ryeland and Oporto. They cooed soft threats, and the rustle of their wings was like thin whispering bells.
Oporto opened his eyes, stared and emitted a strangling sound. "SheЧSheЧ" He swallowed and clutched at Rye-land. "Steve, it's the Planner's daughter!" he gasped, and flung himself to the floor. "Please!" he begged, writhing toward her. "Please, we didn't mean to bother you!"
But the approach must have alarmed her. Not very much; for she didn't raise her voice; but she stopped singing in the middle of a note and said, quite softly: "Guards."
There must have been a microphone to pick up her words, for there was a sudden commotion outside. But more than that, she had defenders nearer still. The doves on her shoulders leaped into the air and flung themselves at the prostrate little man. Sharp beaks tore, wingtips like knives beat at him. The door opened and four tall women in the blue of the Planner's guard raced in,
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Death had not been far from Steve Ryeland for these three years. It had worn the neat white smock of Dr. Thrale, the fat, bald, oily man who had been his chief therapist. It had whispered in the soft, asthmatic voice of Dr. Thrale, warning him a thousand times that he stood in danger of the Body Bank, unless he could recall a message from Ron Donderevo, unless he could find the right answers to nonsense questions about a string of words and names that meant nothing to himЧspaceling, reefs of space, Donderevo, jetless drive.
Death had taken other forms. The concealed trigger of a radar trap, the menacing horns of a radar-headset, the more subtle and more worrisome peril of orders to the Body Bank; these were the deaths he had known and learned to live with. These women, though, carried projectile weapons, not radar. Queer, thought Ryeland, even in that moment, for if carried through the thought indicated that there were some dangers to the person of the Planner's daughter that did not come from classified Risks like himself. Could ordinary citizensЧcleared citizensЧbe dangerous to the Plan?
But there was no answer to that question just then. Oporto was screaming under the attack of the silvery doves, the woman guards were bearing down on them.
The girl stopped them all with a single word. "Wait." She swept a mound of bubbles away from her face to see better, exposing a throat of alabaster. Her eyes were green-gray and serene. She looked very lovely and very young.
She caught Ryeland completely undefended.
In the isolation camp there had been no womenЧnot even a pin-up picture; and here he was in the presence of a most beautiful woman, in what should have been the privacy of her bath. Apart from everything else, she could hardly have been unaware of the shattering effect she had on him. But she seemed completely at ease. She said, in a voice more polite than curious: "What do you want?"
Ryeland coughed. "This man needs a doctor," he said hoarsely, looking away.
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The first of the female guards laughed sharply. She was tall, brunette; a heroic figure of what might have been a lovely girl, if reduced ten per cent in all dimensions. She said in a voice that just missed being baritone: "Come on, Risk! We'll take care of you and your friend too!"
But the girl in the tub shifted position lazily. She waved an arm through the foam, watched the bubbles billow in slow concentric waves and said: "Never mind, Sergeant. Take the sick man to a doctor, if that's what he wants. Leave the other one here."
"But, Madam! The PlannerЧ"
"Sergeant," said the gentle voice, not raised at all; the sergeant turned almost white. She gestured at the others; they half carried Oporto out. The door closed behind them, cutting hi twain a look of pure hatred and contempt that passed from the sergeant to Ryeland.
The doves, which had been describing precise circles in the air, shook themselves and returned to the girl's shoulders. Their hot small eyes never left Ryeland, but after a moment they began to coo again.
"You're an iron-collar man, aren't you?" the girl asked suddenly.
Ryeland nodded. "A risk. Yes."
"I've never spoken to an iron-collar man," she said thoughtfully. "Do you mind if we talk? I'm Donna Creery. My father is the Planner."
"I know." Suddenly Ryeland was aware of his rumpled denims, of the fact that he was an intruder on this girl's bath. He coughed. "Don't you think your fatherЧI mean, I don't mind if we talk, butЧ"
"Good," said the girl, nodding gravely. She shifted position to get a better look at him. The bubbles rippled wildly. "I was afraid you might be sensitive about it," she told him. "I'm glad you're not. What's your name?"
Ryeland raised his chin and spread the coHar of his denim shirt to display the iron band.
"Steven Ryeland," she read, squinting to make out the glowing scarlet letters with his name and number. "Why, I think I know that name. A doctor? No. A rocket pilot?"
"I am a mathematician, Miss Creery."
She cried: "Oh, of course! Your folder is on my father's desk. I saw it this morning, when we were leaving Copenhagen."
An anxious eagerness took his breath. For three years he had been trying to learn the charges against him. The
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therapists had refused to give him information. Their questions had been carefully phrased to tell him nothingЧ they had asked him a thousand times what the word spaceling meant, and punished him more then once for guessing that it meant an inhabitant of space.
"Did the folder tellЧ" He gulped. "Did it specify any charges against me?"
Her greenish eyes surveyed him, unalarmed.
"You displayed unplanned interests."
"Huh? What does that mean?"
"You possessed a secret collection of books and manuscripts, which had not been approved by the machine."
"No, I didn't." A cold breath touched the back of his neck. "There has been some terrible mistakeЧ"
"The Planning Machine permits no mistakes," she reminded him gravely. "The titles of the forbidden books were listed in the folder. The authors were scientists of the wicked times before the Plan. Einstein. Gamow. HoyleЧ"
"Oh!" He gasped. "Then those were just my father's booksЧa few that I saved. You see, when I was a kid I used to dream of going to space. I've met Ron Donderevo. I wanted to pilot a spaceship, and discover new planets. The Machine killed that dream."
He sighed.
"It transferred me out of the Technicorps and reclassi-fied me as a research mathematician. It assigned me to an installation somewhere undergroundЧI don't know where it was; we were not allowed even to guess whether we were under dry land or the ocean floor or the polar ice. I don't remember, even, if I ever guessed. My memory has . . . holes in it. I had two helpersЧa teletype girl and a little man named Oporto, who is a sort of human computing machine. The Machine sent us problems, like the problem of hysterisis loss in the subtrain tunnels. They were problems the Machine couldn't answer, I supposeЧ even it doesn't know quite everything. Anyhow, we solved the problems.
"Of course I wasn't supposed to see reference books, because I could ask the Machine for any fact I wanted. But for the sake of efficiency it had let me keep a few handbooks, and I had brought those books of my father's among them."