"Harlan Ellison - Alone Against Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

snatched away from a wife and three kids, the same as you got pulled away from your used car lot. What
the hell do you want me to do? Beg them not to bash their heads against the lucite, it’ll smear our nice north
view of space!”
Samswope wiped both hands across his faces simultaneously in a weary pattern. The blue eyes of
his left head closed, and the brown eyes of his right head blinked quickly. His left head, which had been
speaking till now, nodded onto his chest. His right head, the nearly-dumb one, mumbled incoherently-
Samswope’s left head jerked up, and a look of disgust and hatred clouded his eyes. “Shut up, you-fucking
moron!” He cracked his right head with a full fist.
Bedzyk watched without pity. The first time he had seen Samswope flail himself-would flagellate
be a better term?-he had pitied the mutant. But it was a constant thing now, the way Samswope took his
agony out on the dumb head. And there were times Bedzyk thought Samswope was better off than most. At
least he had a release valve, an object of hate.
“Take it easy, Sam. Nothing’s going to help us, not a single, lousy th-”
Samswope snapped a look at Bedzyk, then catalogued the thick arms and huge chest of the man,
and wearily murmured: “Oh, I don’t know, Bedzyk, I don’t know.” He dropped his left head into his hands.
The right one winked imbecilically at Bedzyk. Bedzyk shuddered and looked away.
“If only we could have made that landing on Venus,” Samswope intoned from the depths of his
hands. “If only they’d let us in.”
“You ought to know by now, Sam,” Bedzyk reminded him bitterly, “there’s no room for us in the
System at all. No room on Earth and nowhere else. They’ve got allocations and quotas and assignments. So
many to 10, so many to Callisto, so many to Luna and Venus and Mars and anyplace else you might want
to settle down. No room for Discards. No room in space, at all.”

Across the saloon three fish-men, their heads encased in bubbling clear helmets, had gotten into a
squabble, and two of them were trying to open the petcock on the third’s helmet. This was something else
again; the third fish-man was struggling, he didn’t want to die gasping. This was not a suicide, but a
murder, if they let it go unchecked.
Bedzyk leaped to his feet and hurled himself at the two attacking fish-men. He caught one by the
bicep and spun him. His fist was half-cocked before he realized one solid blow would shatter the water-
globe surrounding the fish-face, would kill the mutant. Instead, he took him around and shoved him solidly
by the back of the shoulders, toward the compartment door. The fish-man stumbled away, breathing bubbly
imprecations into his life water, casting furious glances back at his companions. The second fish-man came
away of his own accord and followed the first from the saloon.
Bedzyk helped the last fish-man to a relaxer and watched disinterestedly as the mutant let a fresh
supply of air bubbles into the circulating water in the globe. The fish-man mouthed a lipless thanks, and
Bedzyk passed it away with a gesture. He went back to his seat.
Samswope was massaging the dumb head. “Those three’ll never grow up.”
Bedzyk fell into the chair. “You wouldn’t be too happy living inside a goldfish bowl yourself,
Swope.”
Samswope stopped massaging the wrinkled yellow skin of the dumb head, seemed prepared to
snap a retort, but a blip and clear-squawk from the intercom stopped him.
“Bedzyk! Bedzyk, you down there?” It was the voice of Harmony Teat up in the drive room. Why
was it they always called him? Why did they persist in making him their arbiter?
“Yeah, I’m here, in the salon. What’s up?”
The squawk-box blipped again and Harmony Teat’s mellow voice came to him from the ceiling. “I
just registered a ship coming in on us, off about three-thirty. I checked through the ephemeris and the
shipping schedules. Nothing supposed to be out there. What should I do? You think it’s a customs ship
from Earth?”
Bedzyk heaved himself to his feet. He sighed. “No, I don’t think it’s a customs ship. They threw
us out, but I doubt if they have the imagination or gall to extract tithe from us for being here. I don’t know