"Jean and Jeff Sutton - The Beyond " - читать интересную книгу автора (Sutton Jean and Jeff)

The Beyond -- Jean and Jeff Sutton -- (1967)

(Version 2002.08.21 -- Done)


For Mary Hansen, Denmark, Wisconsin


Prologue

The planet Engo turns about the Giza sun, a dusky orange star that
stands at the very apex of the galaxy's third spiral arm. Across a vast,
sunless gulf, it stares toward the distant Magellanic Clouds.
Racing along its lonely path, Engo carries with it a strange orange
moon. At times the moon comes within 150,000 miles of the planet's brooding
face; at times it accelerates outward to a distance of over 330,000 miles.
When the moon is closest, rumbling land tides roil Engo's surface and
violent winds, born of the moon's gravitational pull, bend and toss its giant
weeping agora trees. At that time torrential rains lash its surface and its
rivers tumble and roar from grotesquely serrated mountains, spilling out over
the fields of bulla grass. At other times the heat comes -- the season of
orange heat -- and the world is still and stifling.
The captain of the survey ship Star Probe that discovered the planet in
Galactic Year 2850 had given it its name, a Vegan word meaning "outcast," and
noted: "It is the single planet of a star which itself is incredibly remote,
lying at the very brink of an unbridgeable abyss."
Following a brief exploration, he described the planet and concluded:
"Climate unsuitable for permanent development." Proceeding along the opposite
side of the spiral arm in the direction of the seventeen island galaxies that
formed the great cosmic corridor leading to the magnificent spiral nebula
Andromeda, he promptly forgot that such a world as Engo existed.
Over three standard centuries later, in GY 3155, an obscure official in
the Planning Branch of Sector Three Social Administration ran across the
notation and studied it with more than casual interest. Engo, it appeared, was
a planet where humans could survive...for a while. It also was far from the
mainstream of commerce and travel.
Forwarding the survey report to his superior, he noted that this might
prove a suitable planet on which to exile citizens of the Federation's Third
Sector found "dangerous to the public weal" under Public Law 2435-T2-M, a
sweeping edict recently passed by the High Council to control "telepaths,
mutants, and other paranormal minds" (and thus quiet public hysteria arising
from an alleged mutant conspiracy to infiltrate and seize the reins of
galactic government).
His superior agreed.
In time the recommendation reached the highest level of government and
was signed by the Imperator. In a short while a village was born on Engo. The
planet promptly was decreed out of bounds to all but official ships. Commerce
with it was prohibited, and all mention of the planet disappeared from the
public media.
Engo ceased to exist except for a few persons high in the Social