"Elgin,.Suzette.Haden.-.Star.Anchored.Star.Angered" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elgin Suzette Haden)

"In an instant."
The Fish made a mental note that future operations must not on any account involve Multiversity Deans, made a second note that whoever had suggested it this time was to be fired, and prepared to negotiate.
"May I ask what it is that has alarmed you so?" he asked, for beginners. "Did Citizen Jones insult you? Threaten you? Did you find his mission offensive to some personal principle?"
"Jones was ... diverted ... briefly from his mission," said the Dean, "and landed on Galoralon."
The Fish looked very surprised. "Really," he said.
"And," the Dean went on, "by some astonishing coincidence, only an hour after his landing, there was a revolution on Galoralon. Those who managed to flee report that the people of the swamps just spontaneously, with no warning at all, rose up and took over the government. 'As if inspired by a force outside themselves' was the phrase used in the threedies, as I recall."
"And?"
"And I don't believe in coincidences."
"Nor do I," said The Fish significantly.
"Which means?"
"The diversion," he said. "The so-called diversion."
"Well."
"Well, what?"
"I am quite willing to admit that I had something to do with that."
"That does not surprise me."
"And I am also quite willing to admit that it didn't work. Your TGIS man was supposed to be at this moment languishing in a Galoralon jail, inhaling the swamp gases and counting off the days on his cell wall with little drops of his blood, obtained by biting his thumb each morning."
"A certain element of delay, eh, Citizen Dean?"
"Precisely."
"And this 'cripple' managed to escape unscathed?"
"Indeed he did," said the Dean bitterly. "Right on to Freeway, with not even a full day lost."
"Hmmmmm."
"It comes of doing things without proper motivation," said the Dean.
"Explain, please?"
"It comes, Alvin, of having delayed your Citizen Jones—or rather, having tried to do so—without knowing exactly why I was taking that step. A certain feeling of distrust ... a nagging concern that he was going to cause trouble and I wasn't sure what sort of trouble ... these are not proper motivations."
The Fish looked at her sternly, and pronounced, "Nothing is a proper motivation for a Multiversity Dean to interfere in the activities of a federal bureau."
"BEM-dung," said the Dean. "For everything, no matter what, there can always be—logically speaking—a proper motivation."
"Citizen," snapped The Fish, "we are not dealing in logic here, we are dealing in reality!"
"Then," said the Dean, leaning toward him, "let me set you the reality as if it were a logical problem. Given: one apparently crippled semi-idiot, tootling about the Galaxies on a secret mission. Given: one pleasant and inoffensive little religious movement, on a Novice Planet called Freeway, somehow involved in this mission. Given: one 'spontaneous' revolution, somehow involved with the activities of the crippled semi-idiot. Given: a universe full of real problems to be solved, real revolutions to be fought, real missions to send people on! And needed, my friend, some mechanism for deriving sensible conclusions ... or just sense ... from this array of givens. Now just what the devil is going on?"
She leaned back in the chair again and looked him straight in the eye. "I warn you, Alvin," she said softly, "I mean to know."
"Ah well," said The Fish, sighing enormously. "I'll tell you, then."
"I'm waiting."
"Simple enough," said The Fish. "We have sent Coyote Jones out to Freeway—using the Student cover, supplied with your excellent help, thank you very much—to find Drussa Silver, charge her with violating Galactic Regulation Seventeen, and to bring her back here for trial. At the request of the government of Freeway, I might add."
"The government of Freeway is primitive," said the Dean. "And corrupt."
"It is nonetheless entitled to ask for help from Mars-Central, like any other member of the Federation."
"The people of Freeway are oppressed and degraded by this government, which has them locked into a feudal system reminiscent of the Middle Ages of Old Earth!"
"There is a mechanism available to them," said The Fish calmly. "They need only file a Complaint Of Oppression with the Tri-Galactic Council, and they have not done so."
"They are not even aware that they are oppressed!"
"Then," said The Fish, "they are not yet ready to be mucked about with by the investigatory panels and jurists and legislators of the Tri-Galactic Federation. Freeway is still on Novice Planet status. Its government is still playing at sovereignty and ordering everyone to stay out of its territory—standard Novice behavior. They will need another ten, perhaps twenty years, before it is possible to bring them fully into the Federation without imposing severe shock upon their culture."
The Dean's eyes narrowed.
"A policy of benign non-interference, eh?"
"That is customary."
"Then what right have you to 'muck about' in their religious affairs?" thundered the Dean. "Galactic Regulation Seventeen, for the Light's sake! Using religion to defraud the people? Can you find me a Novice Planet where that regulation is not being violated?"
The Fish spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"I repeat," he said, "we were asked to interfere by the government of the planet, which claims that this female charlatan is wreaking havoc with her mumbo-jumbo."
"What mumbo-jumbo?"
"She is," said The Fish patiently, "possessed of unusual psibilities, we are told, and is able to produce mass hallucinations of high quality and great ingenuity. She has convinced a high proportion of the masses on Freeway that she is capable of a wide assortment of miracles, and this conviction is causing massive defections of people of Freeway from their establishment culture. The government feels it can't be allowed to go on, and has asked for help—which is perfectly within their rights."
There was a long silence, while the Dean looked at him, and then she said, "What makes you so sure she is a fake, Alvin?"
The Fish raised his eyebrows. "Oh, come now," he scoffed, "do you believe that people can walk on the ocean barefooted? Fly through the air under their own power? Bring down showers of roses and lilies from heaven? Start and stop storms? Make it snow in summer heat? Make rocks sing—in four-part harmony?"
"You obviously don't."
"No, I certainly do not, and neither does any other thinking person. Some of the tricks are easily explained ... some sort of gravity-repellent substance on the feet for the traipsing about on the ocean, a concealed mechanical device for the seeming independent flight ... the others are clearly telepathic projections."