"Bester, Alfred - Hobson's Choice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bester Alfred)
This is a warning to accomplices like you, me and Addyer.
Can you spare price of one cup coffee, honoTable sir? I am indigent organism which are hungering.
By day, Addyer was a statistician. He concerned himself with such matters as statistical tables, averages and dispersions, groups that are not homogeneous and random sampling. At night, Addyer plunged into an elaborate escape fantasy divided into two parts. Either he imagined himself moved back in time a hundred years with a double armful of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, best-sellers, hit plays and gambling records; or else he imagined himself transported forward in time a thousand years to the Golden Age of perfection.
There were other fantasies which Addyer entertained on odd Thursdays, such as (by a fluke) becoming the only man left on earth with a world of passionate beauties to fecundate; such as acquiring the power of invisibility which would enable him to rob banks and right wrongs with impunity; such as possessing the mysterious power of working miracles.
Up to this point you and I and Addyer are identical. Where we part company is in the fact that Addyer was a statistician.
Can you spare cost of one cup coffee, honorable miss? For blessed charitability? I am beholden.
On Monday, Addyer rushed into his chiefТs office, waving a sheaf of papers. УLook here, Mr. Grande,Ф Addyer sputtered. УIТve found something fishy. Extremely fishy . . . In the statistical sense, that is.Ф
УOh, hell,Ф Grande answered. УYouТre not supposed to be finding anything. WeТre in between statistics until the warТs over.Ф
УI was leafing through the Interior DepartmentТs reports. DТyou know our popuТationТs up?Ф
УNot after the atom bomb it isnТt,Ф said Grande. УWeТve lost double what our birthrate can replace.Ф He pointed out the window to the twenty-five-foot stub of the Washington Monument. УThereТs your documentation.Ф
УBut our populationТs up 3.0915 percent.Ф Addyer displayed his figures. УWhat about that, Mr. Grande?Ф
УMust be a mistake somewhere,Ф Grande muttered after a momentТs inspection. УYouТd better check.Ф
УYes, sir,Ф said Adclyer scurrying out of the office. УI knew youТd be interested, sir. YouТre the ideal statistician, sir.Ф He was gone.
УPoop,Ф said Grande and once again began computing the quantity of bored respirations left to him. It was his personalized anesthesia.
On Wednesday, Addyer requisitioned the comptometer and file and ran a test check on Washington, D.C. To his dismay he discovered that the population of the former capital was down 0.0029 percent. This was distressing, and Addyer went home to escape into a dream about Queen VictoriaТs Golden Age where he amazed and confounded the world with his brilliant output of novels, plays and poetry, all cribbed from Shaw, Galsworthy and Wilde.
Can you spare price of one coffee, honorable sir? I am distTessed individual needful of chariting.
On Thursday, Addyer tried another check, this time on the city of Philadelphia. He discovered that PhiladelphiaТs population was up 0.095 9 percent. Very encouraging. He tried a rundown on Little Rock. Population up 1.1329 percent. He tested St. Louis. Population up 2.0924 percent. . . and this despite the complete extinction of Jefferson County owing to one of those military mistakes of an excessive nature.
УMy God!Ф Addyer exclaimed, trembling with excitement. УThe closer I get to the center of the country, the greater the increase. But it was the center of the country that took the heaviest punishment in the buz-raid. WhatТs the answer?Ф
That night he shuttled back and forth between the future and the past in his ferment, and he was down at the shop by AM. He put a twenty-four-hour claim on the compo and files. He followed up his hunch and he came up with a fantastic discovery which he graphed in approved form. On the map of the remains of the United States he drew concentric circles in colors illustrating the areas of population increase. The red, orange, yellow, green and blue circles formed a perfect target around Finney County, Kansas.
УMr. Grande,Ф Addyer shouted in a high statistical passion, УFinney County has got to explain this.Ф
УYou go out there and get that explanation,Ф Grande replied, and Addyer departed.
УPoop,Ф muttered Grande and began integrating his pulse rate with his eye-blink.
Can you spare price of one coffee, dearly madam? I am starveling organism requiring nutritiousment.
Now, travel in those days was hazardous. Addyer took ship to Charleston (there were no rail connections remaining in the North Atlantic states) and was wrecked off Hatteras by a rogue mine. He drifted in the icy waters for seventeen hours, muttering through his teeth: УOh, Christ! If only IТd been born a hundred years ago.Ф
Apparently this form of prayer was potent. He was picked up by a navy sweeper and shipped to Charleston where he arrived just in time to acquire a subcritical radiation burn from a raid which fortunately left the railroad unharmed. He was treated for the burn from Charleston to Macon (change) from Birmingham to Memphis (bubonic plague) to Little Rock (polluted water) to Tulsa (fallout quarantine) to Kansas City (the O.K. Bus Co. Accepts No Liability for Lives Lost through Acts of War) to Lyonesse, Finney County, Kansas.
And there he was in Finney County with its great magma pits and scars and radiation streaks; whole farms blackened and razed; whole highways so blasted they looked like dotted lines; whole population 4-F. Clouds of soot and fallout neutralizers hung over Finney County by day, turning it into a Pittsburgh on a still afternoon. Auras of radiation glowed at night, highlighted by the blinking red warning beacons, turning the county into one of those overexposed night photographs, all blurred and cross-hatched by deadly slashes of light.
After a restless night in the Lyonesse Hotel, Addyer went over to the county seat for a check on their birth records. He was armed with the proper credentials, but the county seat was not armed with the statistics. That excessive military mistake again. It had extinguished the seat.
A little annoyed, Addyer marched off to the County Medical Association office. His idea was to poll the local doctors on births. There was an office and one attendant who had been a practical nurse. He informed Addyer that Finney County had lost its last doctor to the army eight months previous. Midwives might be the answer to the birth enigma but there was no record of midwives. Addyer would simply have to canvass from door to door, asking if any lady within practiced that ancient profession.
Further piqued, Addyer returned to the Lyonesse Hotel and wrote on a slip of tissue paper: HAVING DATA DIFFICULTIES. WILL REPORT AS SOON AS INFORMATION AVAILABLE. He slipped the message into an aluminum capsule, attached it to his sole surviving carrier pigeon and dispatched it to Washington with a prayer. Then he sat down at his window and brooded.
He was aroused by a curious sight. In the street below, the O.K. Bus Co. had just arrived from Kansas City. The old coach wheezed to a stop, opened its door with some difficulty and permitted a one-legged farmer to emerge. His burned face was freshly bandaged. Evidently this was a well-to-do burgess who could afford to travel for medical treatment. The bus backed up for the return trip to Kansas City and honked a warning horn. That was when the curious sight began.
From nowhere. . . absolutely nowhere. . . a horde of people appeared. They skipped from back alleys, from behind rubble piles; they popped out of stores, they filled the street. They were all jolly, healthy, brisk, happy. They laughed and chatted as they climbed into the bus. They looked like hikers and tourists, carrying knapsacks, carpetbags, box lunches and even babies. In two minutes the bus was filled. It lurched off down the road, and as it disappeared Addyer heard happy singing break out and echo from the walls of rubble.
УIТll be damned,Ф he said.
He hadnТt heard spontaneous singing in over two years. He hadnТt seen a
carefree smile in over three years. He felt like a color-blind man who was seeing the full spectrum for the first time. It was uncanny. It was also a little blasphemous.
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