"C M Kornbluth - Friend To Man" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

Friend to Man



C. M. Kornbluth




Friend to Man



CALL HIM, if anything, Smith. He had answered to that and to other names in the past. Occupation,
fugitive. His flight, it is true, had days before slowed to a walk and then to a crawl, but still he moved, a
speck of gray, across the vast and featureless red plain of a planet not his own.



Nobody was following Smith, hte sometimes realized, and then he would rest for a while, but not long.
After a minute or an hour the posse of his mind would reform and spur behind him; reason would cry no
and still he would heave himself to his feet and begin again to inch across the sand.



The posse, imaginary and terrible, faded from front to rear. Perhaps in the very last rank of pursuers was
a dim shadow of a schoolmate. Smith had never been one to fight fair. More solid were the images of his
first commercial venture, the hijacking job. A truck driver with his chest burned out namelessly pursued;
by his side a faceless cop. The ranks of the posse grew crowded then, for Smith had been a sort of
organizer after that, but never an organizer too proud to demonstrate his skill. An immemorially
old-fashioned garroting-wire trailed inches from the nape of Winkle's neck, for Winkle had nearly sung to
the police.



"Squealer!" shrieked Smith abruptly, startling himself. Shaking, he closed his eyes and still Winkle
plodded after him, the tails of wire bobbing with every step, stiffly.



A solid, businesslike patrolman eclipsed him, drilled through the throat; beside him was the miraculously
resurrected shade ofHenderson.



The twelve-man crew of a pirated lighter marched, as you would expect, in military formation, but they
bled ceaselessly from their ears and eyes as people do when shot into space without helmets.