"Robert Reed - Sister Alice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

THERE WERE EXACTLYone thousand Families.

Nothing about their existence had come easily. Not their laws, not their restrictions, and not even their
numbers. Ten million years ago, with the Great Wars still raging, an alliance of desperate leaders met on a
frigid, barely named world. Everyone who traveled there, enemies and friends alike, agreed about one
vital issue: Without substantial, immediate change, the human species would soon be extinct. Populations
were collapsing in every district; entire worlds were being reduced to dust and crumbled bones.
Moreover, if the wars continued to spread, every other flavor of life in the galaxy would be battered, and
many species would cease to be.

It was that atmosphere of terror and unalloyed despair that brought out the unsuspected genius in mere
people. Suddenly the unthinkable was obvious, the impossible appeared easy, and the coldest, most
bloodless bureaucrat found himself speaking in verse and dreaming in brilliant color. A war-weary prime
minister sketched out the roughest imaginable plan for the future. With a quavering voice, she described
the Families, giving them that inadequate name because she didnтАЩt have time or inclination to think of any
better title. The Families would begin with a few carefully selected individuals, she explained. Each of
those few would be given every imaginable power. A kind of godhood would be set on their shoulders,
and because they had to be good ethical people, they would have no choice but to fill the role of worthy
gods, helping normal citizens and old prime ministers steer a worthy course through the coming eons.

But how many people deserved such an honor? And how would they be chosen? And how many of
these Families would be required to serve this pitiful humanity?

The prime ministers and presidents and even the scruffiest little despot had brought powerful quantum
computers with them. Each asked his or her machine for its opinion, and after careful deliberation based
on nearly infinite factors, plus a hard stare into the imaginable future, the machines blessed the outrageous
plan. But they couldnтАЩt agree on any single perfect number of Families. There were too many variables,
they confessed. The future was vast and unknowable and imperfect and probably malicious. It was left to
the human minds to arrive at a target goal, and after a heartbeatтАЩs pause, some little voice in back cried
out, тАЬHow about a flat thousand? ItтАЩs a simple, memorable number, and it gives us a lot of them, but not
so many that theyтАЩll be getting underfootтАжyou know, so they wonтАЩt seem cheapтАж?тАЭ



ORD WAS A Chamberlain.

Probably no Family was known by more or wielded more power. Near the center of the sprawling
estate, perched on a broad scenic peak, stood a great round building, tall and massive, built from the
cultured granite with a shell of tailored white corals living on its exterior. It was the ChamberlainsтАЩ
ancestral home. The interior, both above ground and below, was a maze of rooms and curling hallways,
simple laboratories and assorted social arenas. There were enough apartments for fifteen hundred
brothers and sisters, should so many ever wish to come home at once. And there were other fabulous
buildings scattered about the propertyтАФelegant cottages and ancient hunting lodges and baby mansions
built from the rarest or most modern of materials. The entire Chamberlain family could reunite on this one
patch of holy ground, if there would ever be the need.

But it was the simple cylindrical house that embodied the Chamberlain legacy and legend. Humans
throughout the galaxy would see the image of it, and they would think about OrdтАЩs familyтАФhow they
helped the Sanchexes win the Great Wars, and afterward, the Chamberlains and Nuyens were
instrumental in building the institutions and customs and laws and muscular organizations that had brought