"Mack Reynolds - Romp" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Willard Rhuling had taken a place on a couch. He looked about the room again. "And all these rather
expensive furnishings. They belong to your friend, too?"
"Some of them," Rosy said. "And some of them are mine."
Rhuling brought a notebook from an inner pocket and flicked through it. He found his page and
checked it. "Phidias Porras, alias Rosy Porras," he read. "Category Food, Subdivision Baking, Branch
Pretzel Bender." He frowned. "What in Zen is a pretzel bender?"
Rosy Porras flushed. "How'd know?" he growled. "I was born into my category, like everybody else.
My old man was a pretzel bender and his old man, and his. But that branch got automated out a long
time ago. Can I help it if there is no such work. I just live on my credits from my Inalienable Basic."
Rhuling looked at him patiently. "You drive a late model hovercar. Where did you acquire the credits
for it?"
Rosy grinned at him. "I didn't." The other's eyebrows went up. "You admit it? That you got this car
without credits to exchange for it?"
"I won it gambling."
"Oh, come now."
Rosy Porras, in exaggerated nonchalance, crossed one leg over the other. He said reasonably,
"There's no regulation against gambling."
The other said disgustedly, "Don't be ridiculous. Gambling isn't practical on anything but a matchstick
level. Of course, there's no regulation against it, but when our system of exchange is such that no one but
you yourself can spend the credits you acquire as dividends on your Inalienable Basic stock, or what you
earn above your basic dividends, gambling becomes nonsense."
Porras was shaking his head at him. "Now that's where you Category Government people haven't
figured out this fancy system to its end. Stutes that like to gamble, like to gamble period, and they'll find a
way. Sure, we can't spend each other's credits, but we can gamble for things. Suppose a dozen or so
poker addicts form kind of a club. One of them sticks in his hovercar which he had to pony up a hundred
credits for; another sticks in a diamond ring that rates fifty credits; another puts in a Tri-Di camera that set
him back twenty credits. O.K., the banker issues chips for the credit value of every item the group
members put up. And if any member wins enough credit chips he can 'buy' the thing he wants out of the
club kitty."
Rhuling was staring at him. "I'll be damned," he said.
Rosy Porras snorted amusement. "You must be from out of town," he said. "You mean you never
heard of gambling clubs?"
The other cleared his throat. He said, ruefully, "Undoubtedly, I'll be hearing more about them soon.
There's no regulation against them now, but there should be."
"Why?" Porras said, letting his voice go plaintive. "Listen, why can't you DS characters leave off
fouling up everybody you can?"
The other said patiently, "Because under People's Capitalism, Citizen, no one can steal, cheat or con
anyone else out of his means of exchange. Or, at least, that's why my category exists. The DS is
interested in how a Rosy Porras can live extremely well without having performed any useful contribution
in any field for his whole adult life."
Rosy's expression made it clear he was being imposed upon. "Listen," he said. "I got a lot of friends.
I haven't been too well lately, I been sick, see? O.K., so these friends of mine pick up the tab here and
there."
"You mean friends have been discharging your obligations by using their credits to pay your bills?"
"There's no regulation against gifts."
"No, there isn't," Rhuling admitted, unhappily. "But discharging a grocery bill at an ultra-market isn't
exactly the sort of gift one gives a man in his prime."
"No regulation against it." Rhuling said.
 "And this is your sole method of income, save the dividends from your Inalienable Basic stock?"