"John C. Wright - Golden Age 1 - The Golden Age" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wright John C)

things?"
"You are being obtuse, sir!" shouted the odd man, drumming his cane sharply into the moss underfoot.
"The point is! The point is that our civilization should be simpler."
Phaethon realized then that this man must be a member of one of those primitivist schools, whom
everyone seemed to revere but no one wanted to follow. They refused to have any brain modifications
whatsoever, even memory aids or emotion-balancing programs. They refused to use telephones,
televection, or motor transport.
And some, it was said, programmed the nanomachines floating in their cell nuclei to produce, as years
passed, the wrinkled skin, hair defects, osteoarthritis, and general physical decay that figured so
prominently in ancient literature, poems, and interactives. Phaethon wondered in horror what could
prompt a man to indulge in such slow and deliberate self-mutilation.
The man was speaking: "You are blind to what is plain before your eyes! Behold the mirrored layer of
tissue growing over all these leaves. It is to block the true sun from the knowledge of these plants.
Tracking a sun, which merely rises and sets, is easier than anticipating retrograde motion, I assure you.
Complex habits, painfully learned through generations, would be instantly thrown aside in one blast of
true sunlight. And therefore these little flowers have a mechanism to keep the truth at bay. Strange that
I've made the blocking tissue look mirrored; you can see your own face in it... if you look."
This comment verged on insult. Phaethon replied hotly: "Or perhaps the tissue merely protects them
from irritants, good sir!"
"Hah! So the puppy has teeth after all, eh? Have I irked you, then? This is Art also!"
"If Art is an irritant, like grit, good sir, then spend your genius praising the society cosmopolitan
enough to tolerate it! How do you think simple societies maintain their simplicity? By intolerance. Men
hunt; women gather; virgins guard the sacred flame. Anyone who steps outside their stereotypic social
roles is crushed."
"Well, well, young manor-born -- you are a manorial, are you not? Your words sound like someone
taught by machines -- what you don't know, young manor-born, is that cosmopolitan societies are
sometimes just as ruthless about crushing those who don't conform. Look at how unhappy they made
that reckless boy, what's-his-name, that Phaethon. There are worse things in store for him, I tell you!"
"I beg your pardon?" Strange. The sensation was not unlike stepping for a nonexistent stair, or having
apparently solid ground give way underfoot. Phaethon wondered if he had somehow wandered into a
simulation or a pseudomnesia-play without noticing it. "But... I am Phaethon. I am he. What in the world
do you mean?" And he took off the mask he wore.
"No, no. I mean the real Phaethon. Though you are quite bold to show up at a masquerade like this,
dressed in his face. Bold. Or tasteless!"
"But I am he!" A bewildered note began to creep into his voice.
"So you are Phaethon, eh? No, no, I think not. He is not welcome at parties."
Not welcome? Him? Rhadamanthus House was the oldest mansion of the Silver-Gray, and the
Silver-Gray was, in turn, the third oldest scholum in the entire manorial movement. Rhadamanthus
boasted over 7,600 members just of the elite communion, and not to mention tens of thousands of
collaterals, partials and secondaries. Not welcome? Phaethon's sire and gene-template was Helion,
founder of the Silver-Gray and archon of Rhadamanthus. Phaethon was welcome everywhere!
The strange old man was still speaking: "You could not be him: Phaethon wears grim and brooding
black and proud gold, not frills like those."
(For a moment, oddly enough, Phaethon could not quite recall how he usually dressed. But surely he
had no reason to dress in grim colors. Had he? He was not a grim man. Was he?)
He tried to speak calmly: "What do you say I have done to make me unwelcome at celebrations,
sir?"
"What has he done? Hah!" The white-haired man leaned back as if to avoid an unpleasant smell.
"Your joke is not appreciated, sir. As you may have guessed, I am a Antiamaranthine Purist, and I do not
carry a computer in my ear telling me every nuance of your manor-born protocols, or which fork to use,