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

offered. "There's certainly plenty of room for both people and androids. I
took all of that more or less on faith. But I'm afraid I'm wrong. After all,
how can human beings live beside beings that blend indistinguishably with the
mass and yet are stronger, quicker?"
Ed remembered signs of friction that he'd heard about. A minor riot
here or there. He remembered public statements by specialists like Schaeffer
admitting that some confusion was on the way but declaring that in the end
everything should be better for everyone. Those specialists had the
calculators, the great electronic thought-machines, digesting trends, making
profound predictions. But then there was another thought -- had many of those




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scientists already converted their own bodies to a stronger medium?
Ed saw that Les Payten had a faint sweat of strain on his forehead,
though he knew that Les was no nervous coward. His sullen poise just after the
lunar explosion long ago had proved that
"Maybe the worst of all," Les was saying, "is the sense of being
carried along, swiftly and helplessly, by things that are too big and
complicated. You wish you could find a ledge somewhere in the time-stream and
stop for a while to get your bearings. Sometimes you feel that you are in a
one-way tunnel where you have to keep moving. Is there light at the end of the
tunnel? Maybe it's just a matter of personal adjustments taking of whatever
comes."
"I feel as though we're at the threshold of some terrible danger, Ed,"
Barbara said. "What can we do about it?"
He saw how strong and earnest she looked, and it reassured him. He
touched her hand briefly. "I don't know exactly," he said. "But I'm for
holding course toward the bigger future that stirred me up with big dreams of
the planets, of the stars. And I'm in favor of being reasonable. I've seen too
much hate and fear and unreason in people. The way things are, it doesn't have
to be a lot of people any more -- just a few gone a little crazy. The Moon
blew up by accident. A world was gone. But what happened by accident can
certainly happen by design or with the aid of fury. So, everywhere we go we
can talk against fury and panic, and for reason. To our friends, and in the
streets. Everywhere that we can, and to everyone. Small as that effort is, it
might help."
Solemnly the three friends shook hands and agreed to work out the
details of a plan.
--------
*CHAPTER III*
THAT same night, at his home in the suburbs, Ed Dukas read an article
that had especially attracted his attention. Could vitaplasm be grown into
forms unknown before? Could it be shaped from a plan -- a blueprint -- like
the metal and plastic forming a machine? Heart here, lungs there, nervous
system arranged so? Scaly armor, long, creeping body? Or wings that fluttered
through the air? The author saw no reason why this could not happen. Monstrous
things. Ed Dukas chuckled at the melodramatic idea. But he suspected that it