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

was far from impossible.
Young Dukas also had a caller that night. "You said I should come to
see you," Tom Granger told him when they were alone in Ed's room. Ed was on
guard at once.
His visitor's mood seemed to have changed since the afternoon.
"Sorry if I seemed out of line today," Granger said. "My motives are
good. And I didn't want to insult you."
"Thanks," Ed responded shortly. "But you didn't come here just to tell
me that. How does it happen that you're not in jail?"
"Abel Freeman discreetly pressed no charges. I wish he had. But, like
you, he just disappeared. There was only that hole in the ground -- made by
the Midas Touch pistol -- a feeble thing to admit for a publicity showdown. So
I kept still, and the police couldn't hold me. Fact is, most of them seem
sympathetic to what I stand for -- the venerable human privilege of walking on
one's own green planet as a natural animal, loving one's wife and children in
the ancient, simple manner.
Granger was a good orator. Mysteriously, Ed was faintly moved. Perhaps
the gentle argument was too plain and clear. But Ed remained wary of the traps
of language and feeling, and of perhaps impractical dreams.
His anger sharpened. Then, knowing the possibly deadly quality of anger
in these times and wishing to counteract that everywhere, he yearned
desperately to be a master psychologist, always calm and smiling and supremely
persuasive. But he could not be like that. He was too human and limited. Maybe
too primitive.
"You still haven't told me why you came here, Granger," he said coldly.




Page 22
"Why have you passed up a chance for public shouting to come and talk to me?"
Granger smiled. "You're clever enough, Dukas, to know that to win the
nephew of Mitchell Prell over to my way of thinking could be to my advantage
before that public. Or that, if I can't make friends with him, at least
knowing him better might help. Even the latter circumstance could be like
having a finger on a whole set of advantages when the showdown between human
beings and androids finally comes. Oh, I admire Prell! A great man -- if he
was a man when last seen! But his kind of greatness is poison, Dukas, though
millions with short memories have foolishly forgiven him. But if he ever turns
up again, you'll know it, and so, perhaps, will I -- before he can do any
further damage. You surely must realize that he bears a double guilt: for the
blowup and for the development of vitaplasm!"
Granger's smile was savage and hopeful.
Ed laughed in his face. "You think that secretly I might hate Mitchell
Prell, eh, Granger? But he was the idol of my childhood, a whimsical, friendly
little man. So I'm stuck with loyalty. But even if I hated him blackly, I
wouldn't come over to your side. I don't like the way you think. Until the
blowup happened, it was bravo for science and empire. Afterward, your
hysterical soul was free from blame and white as snow, and he was guilty.
Maybe I judge you wrongly. I hope I do. But the way I add it up, it's not the