"Cordwainer Smith - A Planet Named Shayol" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

The Lady Johanna Gnade looked down at him. “Punishment is ended. We will give you anything you wish, but not the pain of another. I shall continue.
“Item: since none of you wish to resume the lives which you led previously, we are moving you to another planet nearby. It is similar to Shayol, but much more beautiful. There are no dromozoa.”
At this an uproar seized the herd. They shouted, wept, cursed, appealed. They all wanted the needle, and if they had to stay on Shayol to get it, they would stay.
“Item,” said the gigantic image of the lady, overriding their babble with her great but feminine voice, “you will not have super-condamine on the new planet, since without dromozoa it would kill you. But there will be caps. Remember the caps. We will try to cure you and to make people of you again. But if you give up, we will not force you. Caps are very powerful; with medical help you can live under them many years.”
A hush fell on the group. In their various days, they were trying to compare the electrical caps which had stimulated their pleasure-lobes with the drug which had drowned them a thousand times in pleasure. Their murmur sounded like assent.
“Do you have any questions?” said the Lady Johanna.
“When do we get the caps?” said several. They were human enough that they laughed at their own impatience.
“Soon,” she said reassuringly, “very soon.”
“Very soon,” echoed B’dikkat, reassuring his charges even though he was no longer in control.
“Question,” cried the Lady Da.
“My Lady …?” said the Lady Johanna, giving the ex-empress her due courtesy.
“Will we be permitted marriage?”
The Lady Johanna looked astonished. “I don’t know.” She smiled. “I don’t know any reason why not –”
“I claim this man Mercer,” said the Lady Da. “When the drugs were deepest, and the pain was greatest, he was the one who always tried to think. May I have him?”
Mercer thought the procedure arbitrary but he was so happy that he said nothing. The Lady Johanna scrutinised him and then she nodded. She lifted her arms in a gesture of blessing and farewell.
The robots began to gather the pink herd into two groups. One group was to whisper in a ship over to a new world, new problems and new lives. The other group, no matter how much its members tried to scuttle into the dirt, was gathered for the last honour which humanity could pay their manhood.
B’dikkat, leaving everyone else, jogged with his bottle across the plain to give the mountainman Alvarez an especially large gift of delight.