"Gordon R. Dickson - Time to Teleport" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

surrounded by committee rooms and these in turn surrounded by the offices of the individual groups.
Above all this was the solar deck and the landing deck upon which Poby Richards, the courier, had
come down with his air-sub. Below it were the living quarters, recreation centers and such, while the
bottom layer of theIsland was taken up by kitchens, storerooms and machinery.

The main council room itself was a steep-sided circular amphitheater, the sides of which were arranged
in three levels and each level divided into sections to hold the representatives of each individual group.
There were sections for one hundred and twenty-eight groups, but, in practice, only about thirty groups
bothered to have representatives permanently stationed on the island and it was unusual to find more than
twelve groups at business in the council room at any one time. The truth was that the larger groups usually
each spoke for a number of smaller ones as well; as a result there were at this particular moment only ten
spokesmen present in the amphitheater. One of these ten was from the highly important Communications
Group, headed by young Alan Clyde; and another from the Underseas Domes whose spokesman was
that same Eli Johnstone that Poby was seeking.

Eli had built Underseas—and himself along with it—into a political factor to be reckoned with.

The Underseas cities hada unanimity of feeling that the land groups lacked. Eli had united the small
Underseas groups who needed a strong voice to speak for them on theIsland ; and for the last five years
he had been able to stand forth and match point to point with Anthony Sellars, spokesman for the
overwhelmingly large Transportation Group. Sellars was considered by most tobethe most powerful
political personage in the world. He was the lion that Eli worried, and wolflike fought, in the never-ending
battle for position among the groups.

They sat now across the amphitheater from each other, each in their respective sections, Eli nursing the
knee of his bad left leg absent-mindedly with both hands beneath the cover of the desk that, with his chair
and himself, occupied the front of his section, walled off by waist-high partitions from the sections on
either side. He was a slight, dark man in his late thirties, with a thin face early graven in bitter-humorous
lines. The lines were deepened now by strain and fatigue; and he sat in a half-daze of numb tiredness,
listening with only half an ear to the flexible baritone of Jacques Veillain, underspokesman for
Transportation, as he rehearsed the popular list of indictments against the organization presently under
discussion, the Philosophical Researchists. This organization called themselves Members of the Human
Race, but which the easily swayed, easily frightened little people of the world had taken to calling the
"Inhumans."

"—vivisectors and mutators," Veillain was saying to the assembled spokesmen and underspokesmen.
"They would write us all off as outmoded ape men to usher in their new era of monstrosities—"

In front of and a little to one side of Veillain, Anthony Sellars sat immovable, his square, flat face without
expression as he listened to the words of his underspokesman. Watching, one would have thought that
there was no connection between the two, that Veillain's attack on the Members was as fresh to Sellars
as it was to the others in the council room; yet, as everyone present knew, Veillain was merely preparing
the ground for his superior, laying down the artillery barrage before Sellar's personal assault.

Eli was the last man present to be deceived by appearances; and he let his attention slip from Veillain
entirely and his gaze wander along the first level until he came to the Communications Section and Alan
Clyde. The young spokesman sat listening, his dark, handsome face propped on his right fist, his
expression thoughtful. Eli watched him carefully. Alan was brilliant and elusive. Eli had been wooing
Communications for some time now, with little evidence of success.