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

kindness -- there, was, very often, a certain disturbing expression in eyes
that looked at them.
Les Payten, Eddie's friend said once, "I promise, Ed. No more talk
about your uncle from me. Finished, see? You've had enough."
Eddie suppressed the anger which sprang from loyalty to Mitchell Prell,




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for he understood Les Payten's good intentions.
At regular intervals there were police visits at the house, and
questioning. "It's partly for your protection, Mrs. Dukas" was one honest
comment from the detectives. But Eddie sensed that there was more to it than
that. Subtly, the interpretation of law had changed since the lunar blowup. It
went backward, as grief sought people to blame. Catastrophe had been too big
for reason or fairness. And the scapegoat himself was not around to be mobbed.
A freckle-faced brat from the Youth Center -- her name, Barbara Day,
had been drawn out of a hat, for of course she had no known parents -- offered
advice: "You ought to go far away, Eddie, where folks don't know you. It would
be better."
Ed knew that this was good advice. Many people were saying and shouting
and whispering that too much knowledge was a dangerous possession. And Ed's
uncle still represented such a thing. More than once Ed had to run fast, with
some big lug chasing him. Black eyes he collected with great frequency, and
delivered some, too. Still, he ached inside. It was as if Uncle Mitch were
part of him.
The world began to look normal and green again. But the undercurrents
of memory were still there. And Ed Dukas began to answer hate with hate,
though he didn't like to.
There was a crowd of young toughs with rocks to throw, in front of the
house one night. "This is the place," Eddie heard one of them say. "Both my
parents are gone. And the bums that live here were in on the reason."
Ed had seen the boy around before: Ash Parker. Now the rocks flew for a
while, and Ed and his mother crouched behind locked doors. There might have
been a lynching, except that Les Payten found a neighbor with a tear-gas vial
and some other neighbors with sharp tongues and courage.
It was the final straw, however. "Will we have to leave, Eddie?" his
mother asked.
"It's best," he growled. "But I'll be back!"
Next day the house was being boarded up. Packing began even before the
colonial travel permits were prepared.
It was goodbye to Les Payten and Barbara Day, and the newly ringed
planet, Earth, with its billions of inhabitants and its great shops that still
worked to give the whole solar system to mankind and maybe a segment of the
larger universe as well. The pattern of the future seemed set, and specialists
still didn't think that there was any real reason to make a change. In fact,
they denied that any change was possible. Nobody would give up the threshold
of immortality, once it was gained. Nor would they relinquish other triumphs
that could bring idleness and decay if they were not used to accomplish bigger