"John Varley - Steel Beach" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

You don't believe me? Here's how it works:
(to come: *insert UniBio faxpad #4985 ref. 6-13.*)
You may ask yourself: Whatever happened to old-fashioned trust?
Well, folks, it's obsolete. Just like the penis, which UniBio assures us will
soon go the way of the Do-do bird. So those of you who still own and
operate a trouser-snake, better start thinking of a place to put it.
No, not there, you fool! That's obsolete, too!
(no thirty)
#
The vocabulary warning light was blinking wildly on the nail of my
index finger. It turned on around paragraph seven, as I had known it would.
But it's fun to write that sort of thing, even if you know it'll never make it
into print. When I first started this job I would have gone back and worked
on it, but now I know it's better to leave something obvious for Walter to
mess with, in the hope he'll leave the rest alone.
Okay, so the Pulitzer Prize was safe for another year.
#
King City grew the way many of the older Lunar settlements had: one
bang at a time.
The original enclave had been in a large volcanic bubble several
hundred meters below the surface. An artificial sun had been hung near the
top, and engineers drilled tunnels in all directions, heaping the rubble on the
floor, pulverizing it into soil, turning the bubble into a city park with
residential corridors radiating away from it.
Eventually there were too many people for that park, so they drilled a
hole and dropped in a medium-sized nuclear bomb. When it cooled, the
resulting bubble became Mall Two.
The city fathers were up to Mall Seventeen before new construction
methods and changing public tastes halted the string. The first ten malls had
been blasted in a line, which meant a long commute from the Old Mall to
Mall Ten. They started curving the line, aiming to complete a big oval.
Now a King City map had seventeen circles tracing out the letter J, woven
together by a thousand tunnels.
My office was in Mall Twelve, level thirty-six, 120 degrees. It's in the
editorial offices of The News Nipple, the padloid with the largest circulation
in Luna. The door at 120 opens on what is barely more than an elevator
lobby wedged between a travel agency and a florist. There's a receptionist, a
small waiting room, and a security desk. Behind that are four elevators that
go to actual offices, on the Lunar surface.
Location, location, and location, says my cousin Arnie, the real estate
broker. The way I figure it, time plays a part in land values, too. The Nipple
offices were topside because, when the rag was founded, topside meant
cheap. Walter had had money even way back then, but he'd been a cheap
son of a bitch since the dawn of time. He got a deal on the seven-story
surface structure, and who cared if it leaked? He liked the view.
Now everybody likes views, and the fine old homes in Bedrock are the
worst slums in King City. But I suspect one big blow-out could turn the
whole city topsy-turvy again.
I had a corner office on the sixth floor. I hadn't done much with it other
than to put in a cot and a coffeemaker. I tossed my hat on the cot, slapped