"Anderson, Poul - Eutopia UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

The farmer hefted his gun. УHow do I know you speak truth?Ф
УTake me to the Voivode,Ф lason said. УThus you keep both the law and your honor.Ф Very carefully, he unholstered his pistol and offered it butt foremost. УI am forever your debtor.Ф
Doubt, fear and anger pursued each other across the face of the man on the tractor. He did not take the weapon. Jason waited. If IТve read him correctly, IТve gained some hours of life. Perhaps more. That will depend on the Voivode. My whole chance lies in using their own barbarismЧtheir division into petty states, their crazy idea of honor, their fetish of property and privacyЧto harness them.
If 1 fail, then I shall die like a civilized man. That they cannot take away from me.
УThe hounds have winded you. TheyТll be here before we can escape,Ф said the Magyar uneasily.
Relief made Jason dizzy. He fought down the reaction and said:
УWe can take care of them for a time. Let me have some gasoline.Ф
УAh . . . thus!Ф The other man chuckled and jumped to earth. УGood thinking, stranger. And thanks, by the way. Life has been dull hereabouts for too many years.Ф
He had a spare can of fuel on his machine. They lugged it back along JasonТs trail for a considerable distance, dousing soil and trees. If that didnТt throw the pack off, nothing would.
УNow, hurry!Ф The Magyar led the way at a trot.
His farmstead was built around an open courtyard. Sweet scents of hay and livestock came from the barns. Several children ran forth to gape. The wife shooed them back inside, took her husbandТs rifle, and mounted guard at the door with small change of expression.
Their house was solid, roomy, aesthetically pleasing if you could accept the unrestrained tapestries and painted pillars. Above the fireplace was a niche for a family altar. Though most people in Westfall had left myth long behind them, these peasants still seemed to adore the Triple God Odin-Attila-Maniton. But the man went to a sophisticated radiophone. УI donТt have an aircraft myself,Ф he said, Уbut I can get one.Ф
Jason sat down to wait. A girl neared him shyly with a beaker of beer and a slab of cheese on coarse dark bread. УBe you guest-holy,Ф she said.
УMay my blood be yours,Ф lason answered by rote. He managed to take the refreshment not quite like a wolf.
The farmer came back. УA few more minutes,Ф he said. УI am Arpad, son of Kalman.Ф
УJason Philippou.Ф It seemed wrong to give a false name. The hand he clasped was hard and warm.
УWhat made you fall afoul of old Ottar?Ф Arpad inquired.
УI was lured,Ф Jason said bitterly. УSeeing how free the unwed women were-Ф
УAh, indeed. TheyТre a lickerish lot, those Danskar. Nigh as shameless as Tyrkers.Ф Arpad got pipe and tobacco pouch off a shelf. УSmoke?Ф
УNo, thank you.Ф We donТt degrade ourselves with drugs in Eutopla.
The hounds drew close. Their chant broke into confused yelps. Horns shrilled. Arpad stuffed his pipe as coolly as if this were a show. УHow they must be swearing!Ф he grinned. УIТll give the Danskar credit for being poets, also in their oaths. And brave men, to be sure. I was up that way ten years back, when Voivode Bela sent people to help them after the floods theyТd suffered. I saw them laugh as they fought the wild water. And then, their sort gave us a hard time in the old wars.Ф
УDo you think there will ever be wars again?Ф Jason asked. Mostly he wanted to avoid speaking further of his troubles. He wasnТt sure how his host might react.
УNot in Westf all. Too much work to do. If young blood isnТt cooled enough by a duel now and then, why, thereТre wars to hire out for, among the barbarians overseas. Or else the planets. My oldest boy champs to go there.Ф
Jason recalled that several realms further south were pooling their resources for astronautical work. Being approximately at the technological level of the American history, and not required to maintain huge miiitary or social programs, they had put a base on the moon and sent expeditions to Ares. In time, he supposed, they would do what the Hellenes had done a thousand years ago, and make Aphrodite into
a new Earth. But would they have a true civilizationЧbe rational men in a rationally planned societyЧby then? Wearily, he doubted it.
A roar outside brought Arpad to~ his feet. УThereТs your wagon,Ф he said. УBest you go. Red Horse will fly you to Varady.Ф
УThe Danskar will surely come here soon,Ф Jason worried.
УLet them,Ф Arpad shrugged. УIТll alert the neighborhood, and theyТre not so stupid that they wonТt know I have. WeТll hold a slanging match, and then IТll order them off my land. Farewell, guest.Ф
УI . . . I wish I could repay your kindness.Ф
УBah! Was fun. Also, a chance to be a man before my sons.Ф
Jason went out. The aircraft was a helicopterЧthey hadnТt discovered gravitics here-piloted by a taciturn young autochthon. He explained that he was a stockbreeder, and that he was conveying the stranger less as a favor to Arpad than as an answer to the Norlander impudence of entering Dakoty unbidden. Jason was just as happy to be free of conversation.
The machine whirred aloft. As it drove south he saw clustered hamlets, the occasional hall of some magnate, otherwise only rich undulant plains. They kept the population within bounds in Westfall as in Eutopia. But not because they knew that men need space and clean air, Jason thought. No, they acted from greed on behalf of the reified family. A father did not wish to divide his possessions among many children.
The sun went down and a nearly full moon climbed huge and pumpkin-colored over the eastern rim of the world. Jason sat back, feeling the engineТs throb in his bones, almost savoring his fatigue, and watched. No sign of the lunar base was visible. He must return home before he could see the moon glitter with cities.
And home was more than infinitely remote. He could travel to the farthest of those stars which had begun twinlding forth against purple duskЧwere it possible to exceed the speed of lightЧand not find Eutopia. It lay sundered from him by dimensions and destiny. Nothing but the warpfields of a parachronion might take him across the time lines to his own.
He wondered about the why. That was an empty speculation, but his tired brain found relief in childishness. Why had the God willed that time branch and rebranch, enormous, shadowy, bearing universes
like the Yggdrasil of Danskar legend? Was it so that man could realize every potentiality there was in him?
Surely not. So many of them were utter horror.
Suppose Alexander the Conqueror had not recovered from the fever that smote him in Babylon. Suppose, instead of being chastened thereby, so that he spent the rest of a long life making firm the foundations of his empireЧsuppose he had died?
Well, it did happen, and probably in more histories than not. There the empire went down in mad-dog wars of succession. Hellas and the Orient broke apart. Nascent science withered away into metaphysics, eventually outright mysticism. A convulsed Mediterranean world was swept up piecemeal by the Romans: cold, cruel, uncreative, claiming to be the heirs of Hellas even as they destroyed Corinth. A heretical Jewish prophet founded a mystery cult which took root everywhere, for men despaired of this life. And that cult knew not the name of tolerance. Its priests denied all but one of the manifold ways in which the God is seen; they cut down the holy groves, took from the house its humble idols, and martyred the last men whose souls were free.
Oh yes, Jason thought, in time they lost their grip. Science could be born, almost two millennia later than ours. But the poison remained:
the idea that men must conform not only in behavior but in belief. Now, in America, they call it totalitarianism. And because of it, the nuclear rockets have had their nightmare hatching.
I hated that history, its filth, its waste, its ugliness, its restriction, its hypocrisy, its insanity. I will never have a harder task than when I pretended to be an American that I might see from within how they thought they were ordering their lives. But tonight. . . I pity you, poor raped world. I do not know whether to wish you soon dead, as you likeliest will be, or hope that one day your descendants can struggle to
what we achieved an age ago.
They were luckier here. I must admit that. Christendom fell before the onslaught of Arab, Viking and Magyar. Afterward the Islamic
Empire killed itself in civil wars and the barbarians of Europe could go their own way. When they crossed the Atlantic, a thousand years back, they had not the power to commit genocide on the natives; they must come to terms. They had not the industry, then, to gut the hemi
sphere; perforce they grew into the land slowly, taking it as a man takes his bride.
But those vast dark forests, mournful plains, unpeopled deserts and mountains where the wild goats run . . . those entered their souls. They will always, inwardly, be savages.
He sighed, settled down, and made himself sleep. Niki haunted his dreams.
Where a waterfall marked the head of navigation on that great river known variously as the Zeus, Mississippi and Longflood, a basically agricultural people who had not developed air transport as far as in Eutopia were sure to build a city. Trade and military power brought with them government, art, science and education. Varady housed a hundred thousand or soЧthey didnТt take censuses in WestfallЧwhose inward-turning homes surrounded the castle towers of the Voivode. Waking, lason walked out on his balcony and heard the traffic rumble. Beyond roofs lay the defensive outworks. He wondered if a peace founded on the balance of power between statelets could endure.
But the morning was too cool and bright for such musings. He was here, safe, cleansed and rested. There had been little talk when he arrived. Seeing the condition of the fugitive who sought him, Bela ZsoltТs son had given him dinner and sent him to bed.