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

what it might be, Harmony. Hold everything and record any signals they send. I’m on my way upship.”
He strode quickly out of the salon, and up the cross-leveled ramps toward the drive room. Not till
he had passed the hydroponics level did he realize Samswope was behind him. “I, uh, thought I’d come
along, Bed,” Samswope said apologetically, wringing his small, red hands. “I didn’t want to stay down
there with those-those freaks.” His dumb head hung off to one side, sleeping fitfully.
Bedzyk did not answer. He turned on his heel and casually strode up decks, not looking back.
There was no trouble. The ship identified itself when it was well away. It was an Attaché Carrier
from System Central in Butte, Montana, Earth. The supercargo was a SpecAttaché named Curran. When
the ship pulled alongside the Discard vessel and jockeyed for grappling position, Harmony Teat (her long
gray-green hair reaching down past the spiked projections on her spinal column) threw on the attract field
for that section of the hull. The Earth ship clunked against the Discard vessel, and the locks were synched
in.
Curran came across without a suit.

He was a slim, incredibly tanned young man with a crew cut clipped so short, a patch of nearly-
bald showed at the center of his scalp. His eyes were alert, and his manner was brisk and friendly, that of
the professional dignitary in the Foreign Service.
Bedzyk did not bother with amenities.
“What do you want?”
“Who may I be addressing, sir, if I may ask?” Curran was the perfect model of diplomacy.
“Bedzyk is what I was called on Earth.” Cool, disdainful, I-may-be-hideous-but-I-still-have-a-
little-pride.
“My name is Curran, Mr. Curran, Mr. Bedzyk. Alan Curran of System Central. I’ve been asked to
come out and speak to you about-”
Bedzyk settled against the bulkhead opposite the lock, not even offering the Attaché an invitation
to return to the saloon.
“You want us to get out of your sky, is that it? You stinking, lousy...” He faltered in fury. He
could not finish the sentence, so steeped in anger was he. “You set off too many bombs down there, and
eventually some of us with something in our bloodstreams react to it, and we turn into monsters. What do
you do...you call it the Sickness and you pack us up whether we want to go or not, and you shove us into
space.”
“Mr. Bedzyk, I-”
“You what? You damned well what, Mr. System Central? With your straight, clean body and your
nice home on Earth, and your allocations of how many people live where to keep the balance of culture just
so! You what? You want to invite us to leave? Okay, we’ll go,” he was nearly screeching, his face crimson
with emotion, his big hands knotted at his sides in fear he would strike this emissary.
“We’ll get out of your sky. We’ve been all the way out to the Edge, Mr. Curran, and there’s no
room in space for us anywhere. They won’t let us land even on the frontier worlds where we can pay our
way. Oh no, contamination, they think. Okay, don’t shove, Curran, we’ll be going.”
He started to turn away, was nearly down the passageway, when Curran’s solid voice stopped him:
“Bedzyk!”
The wedge-chested man turned. Curran was unsticking the seam that sealed his jumper top. He
pulled it open and revealed his chest.
It was covered with leprous green and brown sores. His face was a blasted thing, then. He was a
man with Sickness, who wanted to know how he had acquired it-how he could be rid of it. On the ship,
they called Curran’s particular deformity “the funnies.”
Bedzyk walked back slowly, his eyes never leaving Curran’s face. “They sent you to talk to us?”
Bedzyk asked, wondering.
 Curran resealed the jumper, and nodded. He laid a hand on his chest, as though wishing to be
certain the sores would not run off and leave him. A terror swam brightly in his young eyes.