"Rudy Rucker - Chu and the Nants" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rucker Rudy)

drifted off to other topics, such as the legalization of same-sex in-vitro fertilization. President Joe
Doakes--now eligible for a third and fourth term thanks to a life-extending DNA-modification that made
him legally a different person--issued periodic statements to the effect that the nant-sphere computer was
soon coming on-line.

Certainly the sky was looking brighter than before. The formerly azure dome had bleached, turned
whitish. And the night sky was a vast field of pale silver, shimmering with faint shades of color. Like a
soap bubble enclosing the Earth and the Sun. No more stars were to be seen. The astronomers were
greatly exercised, but Doakes assured the public that the nants themselves would soon be gathering
astronomical data far superior to anything previously seen. And, hey, you could still see the Moon and a
couple of planets, and the nant-bubble was going to bring about a better, more fully American world.

As it happened, the first picture that Nektar saw in the sky was of President Doakes himself, staring
down at her hanging out the family laundry one afternoon. The whole western half of the sky was covered
by a video loop of the President manfully facing his audience, with his suit jacket slung over his shoulder
and his vigilant face occasionally breaking into a sunny grin, as if recognizing loyalists down on the third
world from the Sun. Though the colors were iridescent pastels, the image was exceedingly crisp.

"Ond," screamed Nektar. "Come out here!"

Ond came out. He was spending most days at home, working on some kind of project by hand, writing
with pencil and paper. He frowned at the image in the sky. "Umptisquiddlyzillion nants in the orbit of
Mars are angling their bodies to generate the face of an asshole," he exclaimed. "May Gaia have mercy
on my soul." He'd helped with this part of the programming too.

"Ten-to-the-thirty-ninth is duodecillion," put in Chu. "Not umptisquiddlyzillion." He was standing in the
doorway, curious about the yelling, but wanting to get back to the video room. He'd begun learning math
this year, soaking it up like a garden slug in a saucer of beer.

"Look, Chu," said Ond, pointing up at the sky.

Seeing the giant video, Chu emitted a shrill bark of delight.

The Doakes ad ran for the rest of the day and into the night, interspersed with plugs for automobiles, fast
food chains, and credit cards. The ads stayed mostly in the same part of the sky; Ond explained that
overlapping cohorts of nants were angling different images to different zones of Earth.

Chu didn't want to come in and go to bed when it got dark, so Ond slept out in the yard with him, and
Willy from next door joined them too, the three of them in sleeping-bags. It was a cloudless night, and
they watched the nants for quite a long time. Just as they dropped off to sleep, Ond noticed a blotch on
President Doakes's cheek. It wouldn't be long now.

Although Nektar was upset about the sky-ads, it made her happy to see Ond and the boys doing
something so cozy together. But she awoke near dawn to the sound of Chu's shrieks. Sitting up in bed,
Nektar looked out the window. The sky was a muddle of dim, clashing colors: sickly magenta, vile
chartreuse, hospital gray, bilious puce, unbalanced mauve, emergency orange, computer-case beige,
dead rose. Here and there small gouts of hue congealed, only to be eaten away--no clean forms were to
be seen. Of course Chu didn't like it; he couldn't bear disorder. He ran to the back door and kicked it.
Ond woke up and creakily made his way across the dew-wet lawn to let the boy in. Willy, looking
embarrassed by Chu's tantrum, went home.