"Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Vernor)

only some scientific interests."

The rabbit ears waggled. "So? Post your needs to the answer boards. That may get you results almost as
good as mine, almost as fast. And for certain, a thousand times cheaper."

Wine arrived. Vaz made a thing of sniffing the bouquet. He glanced across the street. The bidding on
physical tour slots to the Sagrada Familia was closed for the day, but there was still a queue of people
near the cathedral entrance, people hoping for no-shows. It proved once again that the most important
things were those you could touch. He looked back at the gray rabbit. "We have needs that are more
basic than picking the brains of a few thousand analysts. Our questions require serious, um,
experimentation. Some of that has already been done. Much remains. All together, our project is the size
you might imagine for a government crash research program."

The rabbit grinned, revealing ivory incisors. "Heh. A government crash program? That's twentieth-century
foolishness. Market demands are always more effective. You just have to fool the market into
cooperating."

"Maybe. But what we want to do is..." The hell of it was, even the cover story was extreme. "What we
want is, um, administrative authority at a large physical laboratory."

The rabbit froze, and for an instant it looked like a real herbivore, one suddenly caught in a bright light.
"Oh? What kind of physical lab?"

"Globally integrated life sciences."

"Well, well, well." Rabbit sat back, communing with itself тАФ hopefully with itself alone. EU Intelligence
set a sixty-five percent probability that Rabbit was not sharing the big picture with others, ninety-five
percent that it was not a tool of China or the U.S.A. Alfred's own organization in India was even more
confident of these assumptions.

The rabbit set down his teacup. "I'm intrigued. So this is not an information-provision job. You really
want me to subvert a major installation."

"Just for a short time," said G├╝nberk.

"Whatever. You've come to the right fellow." Its nose quivered. "I'm sure you know the possibilities. In
Europe there are a scattering of top institutions, but none is totally integrated тАФ and for now they remain
in the backwash of sites in China and the U.S.A."

Vaz didn't nod, but the rabbit was right. There were brilliant researchers the world over, but only a few
data-intensive labs. In the twentieth century, technical superiority of major labs might last thirty years.
Nowadays, things changed faster, but Europe was a little behind. The Bhopal complex in India was more
integrated, but lagging in micro-automation. It might be several years before China and the U.S.A. lost
their current edge.

The rabbit was chuckling to itself: "Hm, hm. So it must be either the labs in Wuhan or those in Southern
California. I could work my miracles with either, of course." That was a lie, or else Alfred's people had
totally misjudged this fine furry friend.

Keiko said, "We'd prefer the biotech complex in San Diego, California."