"Henry Kuttner - Beggars in Velvet UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Heath made a sharp, angry gesture. "No! It isn't the way I feel! Mass murder would mean canceling the work of ninety years, since the first Baldy was born. It'd mean putting us on the same level as the paranoids? Baldies don't kill."
"We kill paranoids."
"There's a difference. Paranoids are on equal terms with us. And ... oh, I don't know, Hobson. The motive would be the same-to save our race. But somehow one doesn't kill a non-Baldy."
"Even a lynch mob?"
"They can't help it," Heath said quietly. "It's probably casuistry to distinguish between paranoids and non-Baldies but there is a difference. It would mean a lot of difference to us. We're not killers."
Burkhalter's head drooped. The sense of unendurable fatigue was back again. He forced himself to meet Hobson's calm gaze.
"Do you know any other reason?" he asked.
"No," the Mute said. "I'm in communication, though. We're trying to figure out a way."
Heath said, "Six more got here safely. One was killed. Three are still on their way."
"The mob hasn't traced us to the hospital yet," Hobson said. "Let's see. The paranoids have infiltrated Sequoia in considerable strength, and they're well armed. They've got the airfields and the power station. They're sending out faked teleaudio messages so no suspicion will be aroused outside. They're playing a waiting game; as soon as another cargo of Eggs gets here, the paranoids will beat it out of town and erase Sequoia. And us, of course."
"Can't we kill the paranoids? You haven't any compunctions about eliminating them, have you, Duke?"
Heath shook his head and smiled; Hobson said, "That wouldn't help. The problem would still exist. Incidentally, we could intercept the copter flying Eggs here, but that would just mean postponement. A hundred other copters would load Eggs and head for Sequoia; some of them would be bound to get through. Even fifty cargoes of bombs would be too dangerous. You know how the Eggs work."
Burkhalter knew, all right. One Egg would be quite sufficient to blast Sequoia entirely from the map.
Heath said, "Justified murder doesn't bother me. But killing non-Baldies-if I had any part in that, the mark of Cain wouldn't be just a symbol. I'd have it on my forehead-or inside my head, rather. Where any Baldy could see it. If we could use propaganda on the mob-"
Burkhalter shook his head. "There's no time. And even if we did cool off the lynchers, that wouldn't stop word of this from getting around. Have you listened in on the catch-phrases, Duke?"
"The mob?"
"Yeah. They've built up a nice personal devil by now. We never made any secret of our round robins, and somebody had a bright idea. We're polygamists. Purely mental polygamists, but they're shouting that down in the village now."
"Well," Heath said, "I suppose they're right. The norm is arbitrary, isn't it-automatically set by the power-group? Baldies are variants from that norm."
"Norms change."
"Only in crises. It took the Blowup to bring about decentralization. Besides, what's the true standard of values? What's right for non-Baldies isn't always right for telepaths." "There's a basic standard of morals-" "Semantics." Heath shuffled his case histories again. "Somebody once said that insane asylums won't find their true function till ninety percent of the world is insane. Then the sane group can just retire to the sanitariums." He laughed harshly. "But you can't even find a basic standard in psychoses. There's a lot less schizophrenia since the Blowup; most d.p. cases come from cities. The more I work with psycho patients, the less I'm willing to accept any arbitrary standards as the real ones. This man"-he picked up a chart-"he's got a fairly familiar delusion. He contends that when he dies, the world will end. Well-maybe, in this one particular case it's true."
"You sound like a patient, yourself," Burkhalter said succinctly.
Hobson raised a hand. "Heath, I suggest you administer sedatives to the Baldies here. Including us. Don't you feel the tension?"
The three were silent for a moment, telepathetically listening. Presently Burkhalter was able to sort out individual chords in the discordant thought-melody that was focused on the hospital.
"The patients," he said. "Eh?"
Heath scowled and touched a button. "Fernald? Issue sedatives-" He gave a quick prescription, clicked off the communicator, and rose. "Too many psychotic patients are sensitive," he told Hobson. "We're liable to have a panic on our hands. Did you catch that depressive thought-" He formed a quick mental image. "I'd better give that man a shot. And I'd better check up on the violent cases, too." But he waited.
Hobson remained motionless, staring out the window. After a time he nodded.
"That's the last one. We're all here now, all of Us. Nobody's left in Sequoia but paranoids and non-Baldies."
Burkhalter moved his shoulders uneasily. "Thought of an answer yet?"
"Even if I had, I couldn't tell you, you know. The paranoids could read your mind."
True enough. Burkhalter thought of Barbara Pell, somewhere in the village-perhaps barricaded in the power sta-
tion, or at the airfield. Some confused, indefinable emotion moved within him. He caught Hobson's bright glance.
"There aren't any volunteers among the Baldies," the Mute said. "You didn't ask to be involved in this crisis. Neither did I, really. But the moment a Baldy's born, he automatically volunteers for dangerous duty, and stands ready for instant mobilization. It just happened that the crisis occurred in Sequoia."
"It would have happened somewhere. Sometime." .
"Right. Being a Mute isn't so easy, either. We're shut out. We can never know a complete round robin. We can communicate fully only with other Mutes. We can never resign." Not even to another Baldy could a Mute reveal the existence of the Helmet.
Burkhalter said, "Our mutation wasn't due for another thousand years, I guess. We jumped the gun."
"We didn't. But we're paying. The Eggs were the fruit of knowledge, in a way. If man hadn't used atomic power as he did, the telepathic mutations would have had their full period of gestation. They'd never have appeared till the planet was ready for them. Not exactly ready, perhaps," he qualified, "but we wouldn't have had quite this mess on our hands."
"I blame the paranoids," Burkhalter said. "And... in a way... myself."
"You're not to blame."
The Baldy grimaced. "I think I am, Hobson. Who precipitated this crisis?"
"Selfridge-" Hobson was watching.
"Barbara Pell," Burkhalter said. "She killed Fred Selfridge. Ever since I came to Sequoia, she's been riding me."
"So she killed Selfridge to annoy you? That doesn't make sense."
"It fitted in with the general paranoid plan, I suppose. But it was what she wanted, too. She couldn't touch me when I was consul. But where's the consulate now?"
Hobson's round face was very grave. A Baldy intern came in, offered sedatives and water, and the two silently swallowed the barbiturates. Hobson went to the window and watched the flaring of torches from the village. His voice was muffled.
"They're coming up," he said. "Listen."
The distant shouting grew louder as they stood there in
silence. Nearer and louder. Burkhalter moved forward to Hob-son's side. The town was a flaming riot of torches now, and a river of light poured up the curved road toward the hospital.
"Can they get in?" someone asked in a hushed voice.
Heath shrugged. "Sooner or later."
The intern said, with a touch of hysteria: "What can we doT