"C M Kornbluth - The Remorseful" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kornbluth C M)

strap without breaking his stride.



Birds screamed and scattered in the dark pine forests as he roared at them: "Well, why not? There must
of been ten thousand up there easy. Progress, God damn it! That's progress, man! Never thought it'd
come in my time. But you'd think they would of sent a ship back by now so a man wouldn't feel so all
alone. You know better than that, man. You know God damned good and well it happened up there too.
We had Northern Semisphere, they had Southern Semisphere, so you know God damned good and well
what happened up there. Semisphere? Hemisphere. Hemi-semi-demisphere."

That was a good one, the best one he'd come across hi years. He roared it out as he went stumping
along.

When he got tired of it he roared: "You should of been in the Old Old Army, man. We didn't go in for
this Liberty Unlimited crock in the Old-Old Army. If you wanted to march in step with somebody else
you marched in step with somebody else, man. None of this crock about you march out of step or
twenty lashes from the sergeant for limiting your liberty."

That was a good one too, butjt made him a little uneasy. He tried to remember whether he had been in
the army or had just heard about it. He realized in time that a storm was blowing up from his depths;
unless he headed it off he would soon be sprawled on the broken concrete of U.S. 1, sobbing and
beating his head with his fists. He went back hastily to Semisphere, flemisphere, Hemisemi-demisphere,
roaring it at the scared birds as he trudged.

There were four Visitors aboard the ship when it entered the planetary system. One of them was left on
a cold outer planet rich in metal outcrops to establish itself in a billion tiny shelters, build a billion tiny
forges, and eventually-in a thousand years or a million; it made no difference-construct a space ship,
fission into two or more Visitors for company, and go Visiting. The ship had been getting crowded; as
more and more information was acquired in its voyaging it was necessary for the swarms to increase hi
size, breeding more insects to store the new facts.

The three remaining Visitors turned the prow of their ship toward an intermediate planet and made a
brief, baffling stop there. It was uninhabited except for about ten thousand entities-far fewer than one
would expect, and certainly not enough for an efficient first-contact study. The Visitors made for the next
planet sunward after only the sketchiest observation. And yet that sketchy observation of the entities left
them figuratively shaking their heads. Since the Visitors had no genitals they were in a sense without
emotions-but you would have said a vague air of annoyance hung over the ship nevertheless.

They ruminated the odd facts that the entities had levitated, appeared at the distance of observation to
be insubstantial, appeared at the distance of observation to be unaware of the Visitors. When you are a
hundred-yard rippling black carpet moving across a strange land, when the dwellers in this land soar
aimlessly about you and above you, you expect to surprise, perhaps to frighten at first, and at least to
provoke curiosity. You do not expect to be ignored.

They reserved judgment pending analysis of the sunward planet's entities-possibly colonizing entities,
which would explain the sparse-ness of the outer planet's population, though not its indifference.

They landed.