"Gordon R. Dickson - Tiger Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

Planetary Consciousness is a fine and needed thing, much
talked about these days. But it ain't Absolute Truth either. For it
is finite, closed – which is to say, less than human. The aliens
in this story have a remarkably sane-sounding world view – and
it is the duty of the sane to cure the insane, isn't it? Isn't it?
Herein will be heard echoes of Lazarus Longs sobs for Mary
Sperling, and perhaps the introductory bars of a Song for Lya.
What does it mean to be human?


TIGER GREEN

I

A man with hallucinations he cannot stand, trying to strangle himself in a
homemade straitjacket, is not a pretty sight. But after a while, grimly thought
Jerry McWhin, the Star Scout's navigator, the ugly and terrible seem to
backfixe in erect, filling you with fury instead of harrowing you further. Men in
crowds and packs could be stampeded briefly, but after a while the
individual among them would turn, get his back up, and slash back.
At least – the hyperstubborn individual in himself had finally so reacted.
Determinedly, with fingers that fumbled from lack of sleep, he got the
strangling man – Wally Blake, an assistant ecologist – untangled and into a
position where it would be difficult for him to try to choke out his own life
again. Then Jerry went out of the sick-bay storeroom, leaving Wally and the
other seven men out of the Star Scout's complement of twelve who were in
total restraint. He was lightheaded from exhaustion; but a berserk
something in him snarled like a cornered tiger and refused to break like
Wally and the others.
When all's said and done, he thought half-crazily, there's worse ways to
come to the end of it than a last charge, win or lose, alone into the midst of
all your enemies.
Going down the corridor, the sight of another figure jolted him a little back
toward common sense. Ben Akham, the drive engineer, came trudging
back from the air-look corridor with a flame thrower on his back. Soot
etched darkly the lines on his once-round face.
"Get the hull cleared?" asked Jerry. Ben nodded exhaustedly.
"There's more jungle on her every morning," he grunted. "Now those big
thistles are starting to drip a corrosive liquid. The hull needs an antiacid
washing. I can't do it. I'm worn out."
"We all are," said Jerry. His own five-eleven frame was down to a
hundred and thirty-eight pounds. There was plenty of food – it was just that
the four men left on their feet had no time to prepare it; and little enough
time to eat it, prepared or not.
Exploration Team Five-Twenty-Nine, thought Jerry, had finally bitten off
more than it could chew, here on the second planet of Star 83476. It was
nobody's fault. It had been a gamble for Milt Johnson, the Team captain,
either way – to land or not to land. He had landed; and it had turned out bad.