"Robert Rankin - Waiting for Godalming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robert Rankin)

the mistaken opinion that relocating is merely thieving by
another name, let this be said: Icarus had not become a relocator
by choice. He was an intelligent lad and could have turned his
hand to almost anything in order to earn himself a living. But
Icarus had dreamed a dream, a terrible dream it was, and this
dream had changed the life of Icarus Smith.
Icarus had dreamed the Big Picture. The Big Picture of what was
wrong with the world and the method by which he could put it to
rights. And when you dream something like that, it does have a
tendency to change your life somewhat.
In the dream of Icarus Smith, he had seen the world laid out
before him as the Big Picture. People coming and going and doing
their things and it all looked fine from a distance. But the closer
Icarus looked, the more wrong everything became. The Big
Picture was in fact a jigsaw puzzle with everyone's lives and
possessions slotted together. But it was a jigsaw that had been
assembled by a madman. A mad God perhaps? The more closely
Icarus examined the pieces, the more he became aware that they
didn't fit properly. They were all in the wrong places and had
been hammered down in order to make them fit.
Icarus realized that if he could take out a piece here and replace
it with a piece from over there and move that other bit across
there and shift that bit up a bit and so on and so forth and so on
and so forth and--
He had awoken in a terrible sweat.
But he had seen the Big Picture.
And he had found his vocation in life. As a relocator.
Icarus realized that the world could be changed for the better by
relocating things. By putting the right things into the right
people's hands and removing the wrong things from the wrong
people's hands.
It was hardly a new idea; Karl Marx had come up with something
similar a century before. But sharing out the wealth of the world
equally amongst everyone had never been much of an idea.
Anyone with any common sense at all realized that a week after
the wealth had been distributed, some smart blighter would have
wangled much more than his fair share from the less than smart
blighters and the world would be back where it started again.
It had to be done differently from that.
But Icarus was working on it. For, after all, he had had the
dream. He had seen the Big Picture. He was the chosen one.
He realized from the outset that he would not be able to do it all
alone. The task was far too big. It would be necessary to take on
recruits. Many many recruits. But that was for the future.
Everything had to start in a small way and so for the present he
must go it alone.
And it had to be instinctive and not for personal gain. He had to
eat and clothe himself and attend to his basic needs, but above
and beyond that there must be no profit.
Icarus also knew that the "powers that be" would not take kindly