"Raymond Z. Gallun - Dawn of the Demigods Or, People Minus X" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gallun Raymond Z)

 "The people that used to neglect things like insurance," he remarked,
"are still plentiful, aren't they? Oh well, maybe there's still a sort of way.
A makeshift. People are bound to think of it. Let it go for now. I've got lots
to worry about, sister of mine."
"Your own skin, for instance?" she challenged him.
"Why did you come here at all, Mitch? The scapegoat-seekers will
certainly look for you here first."
"My own skin," Mitchell Prell agreed. "Maybe yours, since you are a
relative of mine, responsible for my sins. That is an ancient defect of logic
among certain types of people still in existence, I'm afraid -- if the
provocation becomes great enough. The skins of the three of us, my most prized
treasures."
He smiled slightly then, and his blue eyes were gentle. "Don't worry
too much, though," he went on. "I'll be gone sooner than most people will even
think of looking for me. I'll keep out of sight, not even leaving the house,
except after dark. I have some things to deliver to Schaeffer. "Men I've got
to get away. Because life goes on, in spite of everything. I'm still curious
about nature, the stars and some other things. I remain eager for some vast
freedom, Eileen -- for you and your son, and the rest of the cussed race,
whose errant qualities and usually good intentions I share. I see no good in
becoming the offering of expiation for an accident that came out of a general
human urge to learn that can't and won't be downed."
Something like a truce came then. Eddie Dukas could feel it. Family
loyalty was in it and a little of understanding and contrition.
"All right, Mitch" was all that Eddie's mother said. She kissed his
uncle's cheek. Eddie knew that it was a woman's gesture of armistice.
Fires had died down. Dawn was beginning to show in the patio. The rain
had stopped long ago. For no reason Eddie's eyes sought out a pool of muddy
water in a crack in the flagging. The water was clay colored, as it might have
been after any shower. A robin, which had somehow escaped death, was scolding
angrily.
Breakfast was eaten listlessly. There were radio reports and orders:
"Able persons must report to their municipal centers --
"That's for you, Eddie," Mitchell Prell said ruefully. "And your
mother. While I play hiding rat."
Eddie didn't know whether to hate his uncle or not. There was an inner
bigness about that slightly built man that matched some obscure drive that was
Eddie's own in spite of his grief.
"Watch yourself, sir," he growled stiffly.
The day was a day of searching for corpses, of cleanup, of tentative
restoration. At least there would be no smells of death. Pruning machines were
already busy on charred treetops. The world was being put back into order,
like a disturbed anthill. Grass and leaves would sprout again. The scared
faces of younger children -- many from the Youth Center were given small tasks
to help in the cleanup, since it was not the custom now to hide reality from
the young -- would smile again. On that day of sweeping the streets with a
broom, Eddie Dukas made and lost many a brief friendship. Hello ... Goodbye...
Fortunately the poison of radioactivity had not been transmitted to any
great extent from across space by radiation alone. Gases and fragments of the
Moon that were still falling as meteors bore a taint to the atmosphere; but it