"Harry Harrison - Planet Of The Damned (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

something you can do. Only you. If you help me we might save seven million
human lives. That is a fact."

The lock burst and the door started to open. Ihjel shouldered it back into the
frame for a final instant.

"Here is the idea I want you to consider. Why is it that the people of Anvhar,
in a galaxy filled with warring, hate-filled, backward planets, should be the
only ones who base their entire existence on a complicated series of games?"




III




This time there was no way to hold the door. Ihjel didn't try. He stepped
aside and two men stumbled into the room. He walked out behind their backs
without saying a word.

"What happened? What did he do?" the doctor asked, rushing in through the
ruined door. He swept a glance over the continuous recording dials at the foot
of Brion's bed. Respiration, temperature, heart, blood pressure--all were
normal. The patient lay quietly and didn't answer him.

For the rest of that day, Brion had much to think about. It was difficult. The
fatigue, mixed with the tranquilizers and other drugs, had softened his
contact with reality. His thoughts kept echoing back and forth in his mind,
unable to escape. What had Ihjel meant? What was that nonsense about Anvhar?
Anvhar was that way because--well, it just was. It had come about naturally.
Or had it?
The planet had a very simple history. From the very beginning there had never
been anything of real commercial interest on Anvhar. Well off the interstellar
trade routes, there were no minerals worth digging and transporting the
immense distances to the nearest inhabited worlds. Hunting the winter beasts
for their pelts was a profitable but very minor enterprise, never sufficient
for mass markets. Therefore no organized attempt had ever been made to
colonize the planet. In the end it had been settled completely by chance. A
number of offplanet scientific groups had established observation and research
stations, finding unlimited data to observe and record during Anvhar's unusual
yearly cycle. The long-duration observations encouraged the scientific workers
to bring their families and, slowly but steadily, small settlements grew up.
Many of the fur hunters settled there

as well, adding to the small population. This had been the beginning.

Few records existed of those early days, and the first six centuries of
Anvharian history were more speculation than fact. The Breakdown occurred