"George R. R. Martin - Manna From Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

“Twelve years,” said Tolly Mune.
Tuf raised a finger. “To dramatize your plight, perhaps you ought to assign Commander Wald Ober to
count down the remaining time over the vidnets. Such a demonstration would have a certain grim urgency
that might inspire the S’uthlamese to mend their ways.”
Tolly Mune winced. “Spare me your levity, Tuf. I’m First Councillor now, goddamn it, and I’m staring
right into the pimpled ugly face of catastrophe. The war and the food shortages are only part of it. You
can’t imagine the problems I’m facing.”
“Perhaps not the fine detail,” said Tuf, “yet the broad outlines are readily discerned. I make no claim to
omniscience, but any reasonably intelligent person could observe certain facts and from them draw
certain inferences. Perhaps these deductions thus arrived at are wrong. Without Dax, I cannot ascertain
the truth of that. Yet somehow I think not.”
“What puling facts? What inferences?”
“Firstly,” said Tuf, “S’uthlam is at war with Vandeen and its allies. Ergo, I can infer that the technocratic
faction that once dominated S’uthlamese politics has yielded up power to their rivals, the expansionists.”
“Not quite,” said Tolly Mune, “but you’ve got the right puling idea. The expansionists have gained seats
in every election since you left, but we’ve kept them out of power with a series of coalition governments.
The allies made it clear years ago that an expansionist government meant war. Hell of it is, we still don’t
have an expansionist government, but we got the damned war anyway.” She shook her head. “In the last
five years we’ve had nine First Councillors. I’m the latest, probably not the last.”
“The grimness of your current projections suggests that this war has not yet actually touched your
populace,” Tuf said.
“Thank life, no,” said Tolly Mune. “We were ready when the allied war fleet came calling. New ships,
new weapons systems, everything built in secret. When the allies saw what was waiting for them, they
backed off without firing a blast. But they’ll be back, damn it. It’s only a matter of time. We’ve got
reports that they’re preparing for a major strike.”
“I might also infer,” said Tuf, “from your general attitude and sense of desperation, that conditions upon
S’uthlam itself are already deteriorating rapidly.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“It is obvious,” said Tuf. “Your projection may indeed indicate mass famine and collapse to be some
twelve standard years in the future, but this is hardly to say that S’uthlamese life will remain pleasant and
tranquil until that moment, whereupon a bell will ring loudly and your world will fall to pieces. Such an
idea is ludicrous. As you are now so close to the brink, it is only to be expected that many of the woes
symptomatic of a disintegrating culture will already be upon you.”
“Things are—puling hell, where do I begin?”
“The beginning is frequently a good place,” said Tuf.
“They’re my people, Tuf. That’s my world turning down there. It’s a good world. But lately—if I didn’t
know better, I’d think insanity was contagious. Crime is up some two hundred percent since your last
call. Murder is up five hundred percent, suicide more than two thousand percent. Service breakdowns
become more common daily—blackouts, systems failure, random strikes, vandalism. We’ve had reports
of cannibalism deep in the undercities—not isolated instances, but entire puling cannibal gangs. Secret
societies of all kinds, in fact. One group seized a food factory, held it for two weeks, and fought a
pitched battle with world police.
“Another bunch of crazies have taken to kidnapping pregnant women and...” Tolly Mune scowled;
Blackjack hissed. “This is hard to talk about. A woman with child has always been something special to
the S’uthlamese, but these...I can hardly even call them people, Tuf. These creatures have cultivated a
taste for—”
Haviland Tuf raised a hand, palm outward. “Say no more,” he said. “I have grasped the inference.
Continue.”
“Lots of solitary maniacs, too,” she said. “Someone dumped highly toxic waste into a food factory
holding tank eighteen months ago. More than twelve hundred fatalities. Mass culture—S’uthlam has