"Smith, E E 'Doc' - Lensman 01 - Triplanetary (a)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

amount of killing which would or which might advance an Eddorian toward his goal was
commendable; useless slaughter was frowned upon, not because it was slaughter, but
because it was useless and hence inefficient.
And, instead of the multiplicity of goals sought by the various entities of any race
of Civilization, each and every Eddorian had only one. The same one: power. Power! P-
O-W-E-R!!
Since Eddore was peopled originally by various races, perhaps as similar to each
other as are the various human races of Earth, it is understandable that the early
history of the planet while it was still in its own space, that is, was one of continuous
and ages-long war. And, since war always was and probably always will be linked
solidly to technological advancement, the race now known simply as "The Eddorians"
became technologists supreme. All other races disappeared. So did all other forms of
life, however lowly, which interfered in any way with the Masters of the Planet.
Then, all racial opposition liquidated and overmastering lust as unquenched as
ever, the surviving Eddorians fought among themselves: "push-button" wars employing
engines of destruction against which the only possible defense was a fantastic
thickness of planetary bed-rock.
Finally, unable either to kill or to enslave each other, the comparatively few
survivors made a peace of sorts. Since their own space was practically barren of
planetary systems, they would move their planet from space to space until they found
one which so teemed with planets that each living Eddorian could become the sole
Master of an ever increasing number of worlds. This was a program very much
worthwhile, promising as it did an outlet for even the recognizedly insatiable Eddorian
craving for power. Therefore the Eddorians, for the first time in their prodigiously long
history of fanatical non-cooperation, decided to pool their resources of mind and of
material and to work as a group.
Union of a sort was accomplished eventually; neither peaceably nor without
highly lethal friction. They knew that a democracy, by its very nature, was inefficient;
hence a democratic form of government was not even considered. An efficient
government must of necessity be dictatorial. Nor were they all exactly alike or of exactly
equal ability; perfect identity of any two such complex structures was in fact impossible,
and any difference, however slight, was ample justification for stratification in such a
society as theirs.
Thus one of them, fractionally more powerful and more ruthless than the rest,
became the All-Highest-His Ultimate Supremacy-and a group of about a dozen others,
only infinitesimally weaker, became his Council; a cabinet which was later to become
known as the Innermost Circle. The tally of this cabinet varied somewhat from age to
age; increasing by one when a member divided, decreasing by one when a jealous
fellow or an envious underling managed to perpetrate a successful assassination.
And thus, at long last, the Eddorians began really to work together. There
resulted, among other things, the hyper-spatial tube and the fully inertialess drive - the
drive which was, millions of years later, to be given to Civilization by an Arisian
operating under the name of Bergenholm. Another result, which occurred shortly after
the galactic interpassage had begun, was the eruption into normal space of the planet
Eddore.
"I must now decide whether to make this space our permanent headquarters or
to search farther," the All-Highest radiated harshly to his Council. "On the one hand, it
will take some time for even those planets which have already formed to cool. Still more
will be required far life to develop sufficiently to form a part of the empire which we have
planned or to occupy our abilities to any great degree. On the other, we have already