"Rajnar Vajra - Passing the Arboli Test" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vajra Rajnar)

Robinson was following the latest fad in executive offices: nudity. I
suppose the idea is to visually demonstrate that Really Important People
running major corporations have nothing to hide. Look! Nothing up my sleeve,
nothing down my shirt....
I didn't give one damn. She wasn't pretty enough to interest me or ugly
enough to scare me. Clothes or not, I wasn't buying what she was selling.
"Just what am I forgetting, Ms. Robinson?" Not that I cared.
"Your Arboli Profile."
"That load of superstitious crap?" The Tree-people look everywhere for
portents. _Everywhere_. I'd heard rumors that they were busy learning such




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important human sciences as reading tealeaves, interpreting tarot cards, and
phrenology.
"You may consider the Profile superstition and perhaps I agree. The
point is that the Arboli believe it. Your Profile is among the highest on
record. Do you realize how few people are ranked in your category? Not even a
handful. As a result, you'll only have to pass two tests to claim the Reward,
not five or six like we lesser mortals."
The Tree-people would analyze a photograph of a person's face by making
thousands of careful and meaningless measurements of facial features.
Supposedly, they created an elaborate graph based on such telling information
as nose-size to mouth-width ratio. The bogus graph was the Profile.
The Tree-people had requested and received pictures of practically
every living human on our primitive little planet. If the World Census Bureau
reported someone's existence and couldn't dig up a current photo, the Arboli
would try to find the individual and take their own picture. This lunacy was
serious business among the Tree-people. It's sad, but a lot of humans are
beginning to take it seriously as well.
"The Profile is a crock."
"But yours is so high -- "
"Yeah, I'm the damn clapper at the far end of the bell-curve. So what?"
"Dr. Carter, I'm authorized to offer you a carrot in addition to the
stick -- I wish I could see you better. Are you aware that your scanner is
aimed too high?"
"Sorry about that. Mine's built into my monitor and I'll have to take
the monitor apart to realign it." Right now, she should be looking at some
un-brushed dark-blond hair and perhaps the very top of my forehead. I hoped my
forehead wasn't giving away my grin.
"Well, you should get it fixed. I like to see the person I'm dealing
with."
_I bet you do. _
"As I was saying, doctor, we can offer you a positive incentive." And a
redundancy. "How would you like HIMSA to pay off _all_ your debts and support
Virtualife's research for five full years?"
Five years? I'd have enough time to get my major projects off the
ground! Hell, in six months I could complete Paravision, the project that had