"Blish, James - A Hero's Life" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

Valkol turned and looked at the creature so hard that it stopped talking of its own accord. Suddenly Simon was sure Valkol no longer needed tests to make up his mind what the Formentor was.

'I would not expect you to understand it,' Valkol said in a very soft voice indeed. 'It is a matter of style.'



Simon was moved to a comfortable apartment and left alone, for well more than the three hours he had asked for. By that time his bodily reorganization was complete, though it would take at least a day for all the residual mental effects of the serum to vanish. When the Traitor-in-Chief finally admitted himself, he made no attempt to disguise either his amazement or his admiration.

"The poison man! High Earth is still a world of miracles. Would it be fair to ask what you did with your, uh, over-populated associate?'

'I disposed of him,' Simon said. 'We have traitors enough already. There is your document; I wrote it out by hand, but you can have a toposcope confirmation whenever you like, now.'

'As soon as my technicians master the new equipment-we shot the monster, of course, though I don't doubt the Exarch will resent it.'

'When you see the rest of the material you may not care what the Exarch thinks,' Simon said. 'You will find that I've brought you a high alliance - though it was Gro's own horns getting it to you.'

'I had begun to suspect as much. Mr de Kuyl -1 must assume you are still he, for sanity's sake - that act of surrender was the most elegant gesture I have ever seen. That alone convinced me that you were indeed the Traitor-in-chief of High Earth and no other.'

'Why, so I was,' Simon said. 'But if you will excuse me now, I think I am about to be somebody else.'

With a mixture of politeness and alarm Valkol left him. It was none too soon. He had a bad taste in his mouth which had nothing to do with his ordeals… and, though nobody knew better than he how empty all vengeance is, an inexpungeable memory of Jillith.

Maybe, he thought, 'Justice is Love' after all - not a matter of style, but of spirit. He had expected all these questions to vanish when the antidote took full hold, wiped into the past with the personalities who had done what they had done; but they would not vanish; they were himself.

He had won, but obviously he would never be of use to High Earth again.

In a way, this suited him. A man did not need the transduction serum to be divided against himself. He still had many guilts to accept, and not much left of a lifetime to do it in.

While he was waiting, perhaps he could learn to play the sareh.