"Lester Del Rey - Nerves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Del Rey Lester)

half of the paper. "Hi, Dad. Tough about today. But Mom and I decided we'd
drive you to work in my car, so we'll see a little more of you. I guess this
anti-atom craze is getting serious, eh?"
"Palmer's worried, that's all. It's his job to be overcautious." At the
moment, Doc was more interested in the biscuits and honey.
Dick shook his head. "Better look at the editorial," he advised.
Ferrel turned to it, though he usually had no use for the canned editorials in
the Guilden papers. Then he saw that this was signed and individual. It
concerned the bill to evacuate all plants engaged in atomic transmutation or
the creation of radioactive isotopes to areas at least fifty miles from any
city of over ten thousand population. Superficially, the editorial was an
unbiased study of the bill, but it equated such things as the wealth the
industry had built on one side against the health of children, menaced by
accidental release of radioactives on the other. Intellectually, it proved the
plants must stay; emotionally, it said the exact opposite; and most of the
readers here would think with their emotions first.
On the front page, the feature story was on a citizens' meeting for the bill.
The number reported in attendance and the list of speakers was a second shock.
Before National Atomics Products had been built near the city, Kimberly had
been only a small town like many others in Missouri. Now it numbered nearly a
hundred thousand, and depended for its prosperity almost entirely on National;
there were other industries, but they were National's children. Even those
which didn't depend on artificial isotopes still needed the cheap power that
came almost as a byproduct.
No matter what the other Guilden papers screamed, or how crazy other cities
went, it was incredible to find such a reaction here.
He threw aside his paper in disgust, not even bothering with the ball scores.
He glanced grumpily at the time. "I guess I'd better get going."
Emma refilled his coffee, then limped up the stairs to finish dressing. Ferrel
watched her slow steps unhappily. Maybe they should have bought one of the
single-story houses that were coming back in fashion. A private escalator
would be even better, but Dick's education didn't leave enough for that. Maybe
in another year, though, when the boy was through school. . . .
"Dad." Dick's face was serious now, and his voice had dropped to hide his
words from his mother. "Dad, we've been discussing this stuff at school. After
all, medicine has to have some of the isotopes National makes, so it's
important to all of us. And something's been bothering me. Suppose you get
called up before Congress to testify on the danger?"
Ferrel hadn't thought of that. "Suppose I do?" It could happen; he was as well
known as anyone else in the field. "I don't have anything to hide. It won't
hurt me to give them the truth."
"If that's what they want. And if the man running it isn't after good
publicity in the Guilden press." Dick started to go on indignantly, then threw
a look toward the stairs and subsided. Emma was just starting down.
Doc swallowed the rest of his coffee and followed out to the boy's little
turbine-powered convertible. Normally he preferred the slower but dependable
bus to the plant, but he couldn't argue with Emma's wishes now. He climbed
into the back, muttering to himself as the wind whipped at him. Conversation
was almost impossible, between the sound of the air screaming around the
sporty windshield and the muffled roar of the turbine, stripped of half its