"Cordwainer Smith - Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

He left, waving his cloth wildly over his arm.
Virginia puckered up her eyes against the sun and said, "I wish it would rain now. I've never seen real rain."
"Be patient, honey."
She turned earnestly to me. "What is 'German,' Paul?"
"Another language, another culture. I read they will bring it to life next year. But don't you like being French?"
"I like it fine," she said. "Much better than being a number. But Paul-" And then she stopped, her eyes blurred with perplexity.
"Yes, darling?"
"Paul," she said, and the statement of my name was a cry of hope from some depth of her mind beyond new me, beyond old me, beyond even the contrivances of the lords who moulded us. I reached for her hand.
Said I, "You can tell me, darling."
"Paul," she said, and it was almost weeping, "Paul, why does it all happen so fast? This is our first day, and we both feel that we may spend the rest of our lives together. There's something about marriage, whatever that is, and we're supposed to find a priest, and I don't understand that, either. Paul, Paul, Paul, why does it happen so fast? I want to love you. I do love you. But I don't want to be made to love you. I want it to be the real me," and as she spoke, tears poured from her eyes though her voice remained steady enough.
Then it was that I said the wrong thing.
"You don't have to worry, honey. I'm sure that the lords of the Instrumentality have programmed everything well."
At that, she burst into tears, loudly and uncontrollably. I had never seen an adult weep before. It was strange and frightening.
A man from the next table came over and stood beside me, but I did not so much as glance at him.
"Darling," said I, reasonably, "darling, we can work it out-"
"Paul, let me leave you, so that I may be yours. Let me go away for a few days or a few weeks or a few years. Then, if-if-if I do come back, you'll know it's me and not some program ordered by a machine. For God's sake, Paul-for God's sake!" In a different voice she said, "What is God, Paul? They gave us the words to speak, but I do not know what they mean."
The man beside me spoke. "I can take you to God," he said.
'Who are you?" said I. "And who asked you to interfere1?" This was not the kind of language that we had ever used when speaking the Old Common Tongue-when they had given us a new language they had built in temperament as well.
The stranger kept his politeness-he was as French as we but he kept his temper well.
"My name," he said, "is Maximilien Macht, and I used to be a Believer."
Virginia's eyes lit up. She wiped her face absent-mindedly while staring at the man. He was tall, lean, sunburned. (How could he have gotten sunburned so soon?) He had reddish hair and a moustache almost like that of the robot waiter.
"You asked about God, Mamselle," said the stranger. "God is where he has always been-around us, near us, in us."
This was strange talk from a man who looked worldly. I rose to my feet to bid him goodbye. Virginia guessed what I was doing and she said:
'That's nice of you, Paul. Give him a chair."
There was warmth in her voice.
The machine waiter came back with two conical beakers made of glass. They had a golden fluid in them with a cap of foam on top. I had never seen or heard of beer before, but I knew exactly how it would taste. I put imaginary money on the tray, received imaginary change, paid the waiter an imaginary tip. The Instrumentality had not yet figured out how to have separate kinds of money for all the new cultures, and of course you could not use real money to pay for food or drink. Food and drink are free.
The machine wiped his moustache, used his serviette (checked red and white) to dab the sweat off his brow, and then looked inquiringly at Monsieur Macht.
"M'sieu, you will sit here?"
"Indeed," said Macht.
"Shall I serve you here?"
"But why not?" said Macht. "If these good people permit."
"Very well," said the machine, wiping his moustache with the back of his hand. He fled to the dark recesses of the bar.
All this time Virginia had not taken her eyes off Macht.
"You are a Believer?" she asked. "You are still a Believer, when you have been made French like us? How do you know you're you? Why
do I love Paul? Are the lords and their machines controlling everything in us? I want to be me. Do you know how to be me?"
"Not you, Mamselle," said Macht, "that would be too great an honor. But I am learning how to be myself. You see," he added, turning to me, "I have been French for two weeks now, and I know how much of me is myself, and how much has been added by this new process of giving us language and danger again."
The waiter came back with a small beaker. It stood on a stem, so that it looked like an evil little miniature of Earthport. The fluid it contained was milky white.
Macht lifted his glass to us. 'Tour health!"
Virginia stared at him as if she were going to cry again. When he and I sipped, she blew her nose and put her handkerchief away. It was the first time I had ever seen a person perform that act of blowing the nose, but it seemed to go well with our new culture.
Macht smiled at both of us, as if he were going to begin a speech. The sun came out, right on time. It gave him a halo, and made him look like a devil or a saint.
But it was Virginia who spoke first
"You have been there?"
Macht raised his eyebrows a little, frowned, and said, "Yes," very quietly.
"Did you get a word?" she persisted.
"Yes." He looked glum, and a little troubled.
"What did it say?"
For answer, he shook his head at her, as if there were things which should never be mentioned in public.
I wanted to break in, to find out what this was all about.
Virginia went on, heeding me not at all: "But it did say something!"
"Yes," said Macht.