"Eric Frank Russell - Basic Right" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

understand me, Fox?"
"Yes, sire."
"The prospect does not annoy you?"
"No, sire."
"Why doesn't it?"
Fox shrugged philosophically. "Either you are cleverer than us or you aren't, one way or the other,
and that is that. If you aren't, you won't be able to conquer this world no matter what you say or do."
"But if we are cleverer?"
"I guess we'll benefit from your rule. You can't govern us without teaching us things worth learning."
"This," declared Zalumar, with a touch of wonder, "is the first time in our history that we've
encountered so reasonable an attitude. I hope all the other Terrans are like you. If so, this will prove the
easiest conquest to date."
"They won't give you any bother," Fox assured.
"You must belong to an amazingly placid species," Zalumar offered.
"We have our own peculiar ways of looking at things, of doing things."
"They appear to be vastly different from everyone else's ways, so different as to seem almost
contrary to nature." Zalumar put on a thin smile. "However, it is a matter of no importance. Very soon
your people will look at everything in our way, do everything in our way. Alternatively, they will cease to
exist."
"They're in no hurry to die," said Fox.
"Well, they're normal enough in that respect. I had you brought here to inform you of what we intend
to do and, more importantly, to show you why your people had better let us do it without argument or
opposition. I shall use you and your fellow captives as liaison officers, therefore it is necessary to
convince you that your world's choice lies between unquestioning obedience or complete extermination.
After that, it will be your duty to persuade Terran authorities to do exactly as we tell them. Lakin will take
you to the projection room and show you some very interesting pictures."
"Pictures?"
"Yes, three-dimensional ones in full color. They will demonstrate what happened to Planet Ki4
whose people were stupid enough to think they could defy us and get away with it. We made an example
of them, an object lesson to others. What we did to their world we can do to any planet including this
one." He gave a careless wave of his hand. "Take him away and show him, Lakin."
After they'd gone he lay back in his scat and felt satisfied. Once again it was about to be
demonstrated that lesser life-forms are handicapped by questions of ethics, of morals, of right and wrong.
They just hadn't the brains to understand that greed, brutality, and ruthlessness arc nothing more than
terms of abuse for efficiency.
Only the Raidans, it seemed, had the wisdom to learn and apply Nature's law that victory belongs to
the sharp in tooth and swift in claw.
In the projection room Lakin turned a couple of switches, made a few minor adjustments to controls.
Nearby a large grayish sphere bloomed to life. At its middle floated a tiny bead of intense light; near its
inner surface swam a smaller, darker bead with one face silvered by the center illumination.
"Now watch!"
They studied the sphere. After a short while the dark outermost bead suddenly swelled and blazed
into fire, almost but not quite rivaling the center one with the intensity of its light. Lakin reversed the
switches. The two glowing beads disappeared, the big sphere resumed its dull grayness.
"That," said Lakin, having the grace not to smack his lips, "is the actual record of the expulsion from
the stage of life of two thousand million fools. The cosmos will never miss them. They were born, they
served their ordained purpose, and they departed—forever. Would you like to know what that purpose
was?"
"If you please," said Fox, very politely.
"They were created so that their wholesale slaughter might knock some sense into their sector of the