"Herbert, Frank - Man of Two Worlds (CA by Frank Herbert)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

There will always be newspapers, always some crusty old publisher, or a young publisher with crusty old ideas, who refuses to let go of the past. I respect the past, the smoke-filled, bustling news offices and all that, but I'm not a sentimental person. We create a better future if we stay in touch with our past, but I feel damned good about my electronic newspaper. It's my base and conduit for creativity. No details yet, but I'm about to unleash a technological breakthrough in this industry. And a related, but even more astounding development will follow shortly.

-- Lutt Hanson, Jr., an interview in his Seattle Enquirer


Someone's moving my arms, my legs and my head and controlling where I look.

These were panic thoughts in Lutt's awareness. Through the round lenses of his spectacles, he saw foggy human shapes. He heard the rattle of keys and clanking metal. There were men walking around him -- at front, back and both sides.

I stumbled and something took over my body.

An alien force held him upright and walking steadily.

"I am Ryll, son of Jongleur, the Chief Storyteller."

That was hearing voices in his head -- madness.

I was in my ship, the Vortraveler, Lutt thought. I said something to Drich Baker, my engineer and copilot. What did I say?

Memory provided no answer. He knew there had been a blackout. It had erased part of his mind.

He took a familiar mental course then, recalling the day before boarding the Vortraveler.

If I exercise the brain muscles, go through everything up to the blackout, maybe I'll remember.

He had been in the family-owned Seattle Enquirer Building. That much he remembered. A gray, seventeen-story structure, the building housed the plant of an electronic newspaper.

Only a tax writeoff in Father's mind.

Running the family's Newspaper Division gave Lutt the sense that the Enquirer was much more than "a fixture of antiquated technology," as his father called it.

Lutt recalled arguing with old L.H. in the boardroom that morning. But Father always had the last word.

"Stop wasting time on that damn vorspiral crap! You're making us a laughingstock, predicting 'astounding developments' and 'technological breakthroughs' that'll never happen!"

"Dammit, Father, you think things will never happen just because you don't want them to happen!"

"Son, you're sounding more and more like that crazy brother of your mother's. You keep on this way and you'll wind up like your Uncle Dudley!"

Lutt stared at his father. For years, the cloud of some violent quarrel between the two men had hung over the family. And now the old man broke his own rule against mentioning Uncle Dudley.

"Just how did Uncle Dudley wind up?" Lutt asked, almost choking on the forbidden name.

"I hope what they say is true -- that he disappeared on Venus! He deserved to get his ass fried!"

Seeing the signs of increasing rage in his father, Lutt changed the subject but that only led them back into the fight about the Seattle Enquirer, vorspirals and Lutt's future in Hanson Industries.

It was a continuing conflict with predictable reactions on both sides.