"MD Spenser - Humano Morphs 4 Air Morph One" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spenser M D)

It turned out that Mrs. Ziggersnot had known the doors would be locked. She walked to the front of the line, said "Boys! Boys! Stop pulling!" and pressed a button beside the doors.
A tinny-sounding voice blared though a speaker. "Identify yourself, please," it said.
"Um-hmmm-hmmh," Mrs. Ziggernaut said, clearing her throat importantly. She adjusted her spectacles and felt to see that her hair bun was neatly in place, as she always did on official occasions. "This is Mrs. Clara M. Ziggernaut with her seventh-grade science class from Elkhorn Middle School. We have, um-hmmm-hmmh, an appointment."
The doors buzzed electronically, and I heard the click of the lock opening. Mrs. Ziggernaut pulled one of the doors open and we filed in.
The first thing I noticed was how incredibly thick the walls of this place were. I looked as I passed through the doors, and I was astonished. They had to be three feet thick. Were they afraid the cows were going to stage a breakout?
The next thing I noticed was how clean and white and sterile this place looked. I had expected something a little more barn-like, with a hint of cow dung on the floor and a hint of cow stink in the air.
The only thing I smelled was disinfectant.
We stood in the lobby, which was deserted. I saw no people, no desks, no reception area, no pictures on the wall.
Soon, however, I heard a clicking coming down a hallway. A woman in a white blouse and a tight black skirt emerged. She wore quite a bit of make-up and her lipstick was very red. The clicking was from her high heels; her skirt was so tight she could only take little bitty baby steps.
"Welcome," she said, and she smiled without looking happy. "We're delighted you came to tour the
Nacirema Dairy Production and Research Center today. We trust your tour will be both informative and pleasant."
She spoke every word in the same tone. Her voice didn't rise and fall the way normal people's voices do.
Freddy looked at me, leaned close to my ear, and whispered, "Is this woman a robot or what?"
"No," I whispered back. "Just a former flight attendant."
Our guide announced that her name was Jane Smith, and that we were to follow her, and that on no account were we to get separated from her and go off exploring on our own.
Then she whirled around and clicked off down the long white hallway. We tromped along behind.
Soon we reached a closed set of double doors. On one side, I noticed a round hole in the wall that was filled with a reddish glow.
"This is Checkpoint One," said Jane Smith. "Before proceeding further, all of you will have your fingerprints electronically scanned and digitally recorded."


Chapter Five

Freddy wrinkled his forehead. He always does that when he's thinking really hard.
"This makes no sense," he said. "Absolutely no sense at all."
"That's science for you," I replied cheerfully. "None of it makes any sense."
One by one, each of us stepped up and put his hand in the hole in the wall. When it was my turn, my entire hand was bathed with the red glow. After about two seconds, a voice came out of the wall saying, "Please state name and address."
I did that and two seconds later the voice announced, "Prints recorded." It was time for the next person to take his turn.
Freddy was still wrinkling his forehead. His deep brown eyes looked troubled. He really likes to understand things, and it bothers him a lot when he can't figure things out.
Finally he raised his hand. "Miss Smith?" he asked.
She looked at him and raised her eyebrows.
"I was just wondering ma'am," he said. "Why do you have such heavy security at a dairy plant?"
Miss Smith stared at Freddy for about five seconds, as if she were trying to bore a hole in his forehead with her eyes.
Finally she said, "Perhaps you have heard of mad cow disease. It ravaged dairy herds in Europe, particularly in the British Isles. Thousands of cows had to be destroyed to prevent the disease from spreading further."
Freddy nodded. "I read about it," he said. "It can be spread from cows to humans, and it causes a deadly brain disease in people."
"That is correct," Miss Smith said. "And not only can the disease be spread from cows to humans, it can also be spread from humans to cows. If any cows in this facility should happen to come down with mad cow disease, we will be able to track down the source. We will have a computerized record of the name, address and fingerprints of every person who has ever visited."
She paused, and a smug little smile crossed her lips.
"That is just one of the many scientific innovations at this fine facility," she said. "Now, if you'll just follow me..."


Chapter Six

When I think back on that fateful visit to the Nacirema Dairy Production and Research Center, three things stand out in my mind above all others.
One is the absence of people. The second is the incredible sound in the milking center. And the third is what I saw out the window of the milking center, a sight I will never forget.
It amazed me to realize that almost no human beings worked there. When we passed through the doors after being fingerprinted, I did see a couple of people in a glass booth full of control panels and lights and knobs and switches. It looked like an air traffic control tower.
Miss Smith explained that the people in the glass booth controlled the doors, and the flow of milk from the cows to the pasteurization center and from there to the homogenization chamber.
They controlled the temperature of the milk Ч normally quite cold, but hot when it was being pasteurized to kill bacteria Ч to within a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit. They controlled the amount of food each cow received each day to within a tenth of an ounce.
I did see a couple of other people down a hallway wearing bulky white space suits. Miss Smith explained that it was important to keep the milk in a completely sterile environment after it was pasteurized. Any bacteria, she said, would lead to fermentation Ч in other words, the milk would go sour before it reached the stores.
When we reached the doors leading into the milking center, Miss Smith spoke into an intercom, and one of the people in the glass booth pressed a button.
Each cow had her neck clamped in place. Food dropped from a chute in front of each cow's face. A clean cement trench ran behind each row of cows, catching, shall we say, the droppings, which were then washed away by an automatic system of high-pressure hoses.
Wow, I thought. This sure beats the system at my uncle Melvin's farm, where you have to personally shovel the cow doody into a cart, wheel it outside and spread it on the fields.