"Robert F. Young - Passage to Gomorrah" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

efforts of the others, that the Prostitution Act of 2340 finally became a reality.
"The creation and maintenance of an interstellar red light system was a complex undertaking, but we
need not go into it here. You'll be adequately schooled in our history at our Martian convent, provided,
of course, that you decide to join us. There are, however, two important details which I must call to your
attention.
"The first is our caste sys-tem. The convents, which the various corporations have set up on Mars,
have a common standard, based upon apti-tude, personality and technique-achievement, that each
prospective lady of the stars must attain in order to grad-uate. The degree to which she excels in these
qualities, to-gether with her physical qualifications, determines her classification, which in turn determines
the rates she is allowed to charge for her future services.
"The second is pregnancy. Upon leaving Earth, you will be given a Farbes and Doniger
contraceptor-field, guar-anteed for life by its manu-facturers. Keep it with, you at all times. There is no
excuse for any lady of the stars to suffer the ignominy of giving birth to a monster. The Earth council has
granted us, and the other corporations, the right to banish all our pregnant personnel, together with their
lovers, to Polaris 2, and has permitted us to give the planet the much more appropiate name of
'Gomorrah'.
"As soon as you leave Earth, you will be required to take bi-monthly physicals. Don't try to avoid
them; I as-sure you that you'll be appre-hended immediately. How-ever, you'll have nothing to worry
aboutтАФprovided you keep your field with you at all times. Do you have any ques-tions?"
Berenice shook her head. "No. No questions."
"Then I assume that you still wish to become a lady of the stars."
She wanted to run away, and then she remembered that she was running away. She nodded.
Numbly. Miserably. "Yes," she said.
The interviewer beamed. "Splendid!" he said. "Your rating on the aptitude test was very high, and
Camellias, Inc., will be delighted to wel-come you into its fold ..."

"So you want to be a space-man," the captain of the Per-seus said. "What makes you think that
stowing away on board my ship is going to help you?"
"Well," Cross said, "you can't very well take me back to Earth, so you'll have to do something with
me, and I un-derstand that most ships are short-handed."
"Maybe I can't take you back to Earth personally, but I can throw you in the brig till we reach our
first port and send you back to Earth. And you wouldn't be able to get out of the quarantine area as
easily as you got in, I can as-sure you of that. You'd be stuck there for the rest of your life as a
longstarman."
"Not if I stowed away on another ship," Cross said.
The captain glowered at him for a moment, then: "Why in hell didn't you apply for a berth legally?"
"I couldn't raise the bond," Cross said.
"You mean you were too impatient to go to work long enough so that you could raise it, don't you?"
"That's about the size of it ... I understand that ship masters have ways and means of getting around
such mat-ters."
A dark cloud settled on the captain's face and for a while it looked as though a storm were going to
break. Present-ly, however, the sun broke through and the cloud faded away. "It so happens that I am
short-handed," he said. "In the galley."
Cross brightened. "That's all right," he said. "I've got to start somewhere."
"Report to Obronski on the after deck . .. Ever operate a refuse disposal unit?"
"No, sir."
"You'll learn. . . "

"For God's sake," a drunken space marine said "You act like you never saw a real he-man before.
You afraid of me, or something? Come on, smile!"