"Barry Longyear - Savage Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Longyear Barry)

saw a hole that extended deep into the snow, through the frozen soil, into
the hard rock beneath. He frowned and looked toward another site. It too
was nothing but a hole. Armath turned to look at the other male and saw
him crumpled next to the site he had been investigating. Armath growled,
then fell silent as he padded toward the other male. He was lying on the
snow, his back toward Armath, the wind blowing back his long black hair,
showing the gray skin beneath.

Armath halted the customary four paces away. "You!" The male did not
move. "You!" Armath bellowed. Still nothing. Armath traversed a circle,
four paces from the reclining figure, until he came to the male's other side.
Armath looked down at the hole in the snow. It too went all the way to the
rock of the valley floor. He looked up at the other male and howled. His
face was missing.


On the liner to Bendadn to accept his post of chair of the Bendadn
School Department of History, Michael studied two texts on the planet
and its population. The Benda had evolved to dominate other lifeforms,
and had been at the brink of their Iron Age, when RMI put down its ships
and missionaries preaching the creed of the bountiful god of
multiplanetary corporate domination. Earth was signatory to neither the
Ninth Quadrant Council of Planets, nor the United Quadrants. However,
both bodies had made clear to RMI that invading Bendadn with a
combination of money and mercenaries would incur opposition by the
combined armed forces of both organizations. Michael picked up the
senior high-school text that was RMI's secret weapon: Manifest Destiny—
A History of Human Expansionism.

Michael again opened the text and leafed through it. He had finished
reading the thing eight days before, and it still hadn't changed. Michael
shook his head. Some fantasy writer must have collaborated with an
advertising copywriter to produce Manifest. Certainly no historian had
anything to do with it. It was a simplistic, highly romanticized, overblown
account of the human expansion into space, ignoring the warts and
highlighting the invincible, inevitable nature of human force. The message
was clear: humanity, because of its nature and tradition, was meant to
rule. Willing subjugation meant peace and prosperity; resistance meant
destruction. Michael closed the text with a snap. "What drivel."

He leaned back on his couch and closed his eyes. At first he'd refused to
take the top history post, but as the good Mr. Sabin had pointed out,
"you're selling your professional soul for eleven hundred a month; why not
sell for twenty-five hundred? It's the same soul in either case." A good
point, thought Michael. Whether or not my soul is for sale is the concern
of principle; how much is only the concern of economics and bargaining.
The crime is no more severe by being a high-ranked flunky rather than a
middle- or low-ranked flunky. Michael nodded. The good Mr. Sabin had a
definite way with words.