"Gene Wolfe - Talk of Mandrakes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

"We are, but not by human beings. Not unless the central processor tags the
record. So they tell me, and I think it's the truth. It would take a lot of people to
listen to everything we say. I've looked for them, and they're not here."

Peak made finger motions, waves flying along a wire.

"Too vulnerable. Or anyway I hope so. I'm fifty years out of date, Doctor
Peak. Do you realize that?"

"I'm current, Doctor Selim. Just got my Ph.D. With your off-world
experience and my knowledge we'd make an unbeatable team." He hoped it sounded
plausible.

"Then tell me, what is it they're so frightened by?"

"Us."

"Extraterrestrial biologists?"

"People who don't work for them. You do, so they're not afraid of you. I'd
like to work for them too--I'd love to, in fact--but I don't."

"We're going to fix that."

Peak swallowed. It was a hundred strides and more down a wide corridor
more modern than anything he had ever seen before he could talk again. "They think
we hate them," he said at last, "and it's true for a lot of us. A lot of people hate
science, any kind. Hate government. Not just ours, any government. They hold
science and government responsible for..." His voice trailed off. "For everything,"
he finished weakly. "For the way the world is."

"I've seen it," Selim said. "A little of it at least."

"In the old days they had buildings downtown. Isn't that right?"

Selim nodded. "Fifty years here. It was only eighteen for me. Did I tell you?"
 "I read it." Peak swallowed. "If people got angry back then they could
demonstrate. Throw rocks, maybe. My granddad did some of that. So they moved
everything out into the country and they keep everybody else inside. Now they do
things out here, and most people don't know what they are. I don't know what
you're doing, Doctor Selim, and I'm dying to find out. And--and work with you on
it, if you'll give me a chance."

Selim nodded again.

"But whatever it is, that's one of them."

"I could tell you another, but the central processor might pick it up. Let's just
say they're thinking of moving farther away."