"John D. MacDonald - Susceptibility" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald John D)

your patience or lack of patience. This is my home. You have all the normal privileges of a guest. An
autocratic attitude is not one of those privileges.”
He sat down wearily. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m upset. Where’s Zedder?”
“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Isn’t there any central record of population? Any index?”
“We don’t find that necessary, Malloy.”
“I can’t spare the time to hunt in every village for him. I’ve got four more emergency priority cases to
cover in other parts of the Galaxy.”
“Then why don’t you just get back into whatever you came here in and go take care of them?”


HE LIFTED his chin. “When the Colonial Bureau sets up proper resident facilities on a planet and
stocks the planet with colonists, and when said colonists fail to use the facilities provided, it is the duty of
the Colonial Adjustments Bureau to send a Praecursor to make investigation and recommendation as to
what sort of adjustment team should be sent to rectify said non-utilization of standard facilities.”
She looked amused. “I assume you’re quoting from some sort of absurd manual, Malloy. Does it
actually use the word ‘stock’? As with fish in a pond?”
“There is a case on record where one colonial planet suffered such an emotional degeneration that the
colonists acquired a superstitious fear of Center facilities and moved off into the woods.”
“And they were adjusted?” Deen Thomason asked mildly.
“Re-educated,” Malloy amended.
“That sounds dreadful. Just report, Praecursor, that the inhabitants of Able XII prefer a so-called
primitive life, and that the facilities of the Centers and the field station are used when emergencies arise.”
“That will make no sense to the Bureau,” he said hotly. “You people live out here in absolute squalor.
All the Center homes are empty. Insects have gotten in. Of course they can do no damage, but they have
spun webs on the projector dials. It’s untidy, a criminal waste. You could move to a Center. Everything
you could possibly desire would be no farther from your hand than the nearest dial. It is incomprehensible
to me, Thomason, that you should prefer to walk back into the earliest history of your race. Every
possible comfort was made available when this colonial planet was set up for…”
She raised her hand. “Please, Malloy. Stand up a moment.”
He stood up, puzzled. She walked around the table, smiled enigmatically at him and suddenly,
clenching her fist, she struck him hard in the diaphragm. He had just enough warning so that he was able
to tense his muscles against the blow. Even so, it almost took his breath.
“To strike a Praecursor is…”
“Oh, stop being so stuffy! Why are you a Praecursor? Why are you reasonably lean and hard and fit?
Why aren’t you sitting plump and happy within arm’s reach of a dial on your home planet?”
He stared at her. “Why, I… there have to be Praecursors!”
“That point is debatable. But I’m asking why you are one.”
“I like problems and new places, I suppose,” he said hesitantly. “And I have to keep fit because
sometimes I run into… strenuous situations. But no one forced me to be a Praecursor.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“I hope you realize that you are not making sense, Thomason.”
“Indeed? I thought I was making a great deal of sense. Anyway, you can report that we are not
completely lost. One of the Centers is occupied, you know.”
“Is it? Good! Which one?”
“Number Six. I’d like to visit it with you. I have a reason, Malloy.”
He pressed the stud on his time ring and the correct sun time of the Able XII twenty-hour day came
into his mind. He knew that she was standing near enough to him so that she caught it, too, though less
strongly. She chuckled, and it was a surprisingly warm sound.
“Why are you laughing?” he asked.