"Blish, James - Bindlestiff - txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

Not that the original Soviets or their successors forbade space travel. They simply never thought of it. Space flight had been a natural, if late, result of Western thought-patterns, which had always been ambitious for the infinite, but the geometrically flat dialectic of the succeeding culture could not include it. Where the West had soared from the rock like a sequoia, the Soviets spread like lichens, tightening their grip, satisfied to be at the very bases of the pillars of sunlight the West had sought to ascend.
The coming of the spindizzyЧthe antigravity generator, or gravitronЧspelled the doom of the flat culture, as the leveling menace of the nuclear reactor had cut down the soaring West. Space flight returned; not, this time, as a technique of tiny ships and individual adventure, but as a project of cities.
There was no longer any reason why a man-carrying vehicle to cross space needed to be small, cramped, organized foreand-aft, penurious of weight. The spindizzy could lift any-
thing, and protect it, too. Most important, its operation was rooted in a variation of the value of c as a limit. The overdrive, the meteor screen, and antigravity had all avrived in one compact package, labeled УG = (2PC)2/(BU)2.Ф
Every culture has its characteristic mathematic, in which histoniographers can see its inevitable form. This one, couched in the algebra of the Magian culture, pointing toward the matrix-mechanics of the new Nomad era, was a Western discovery. Blackett had found the essential relationship between gravity and magnetism, and Dirac had explained why it had not been detected before. Yet despite all of the minority groups butchered or УconcentratedФ by the Bureaucratic State, only the pure mathematicians went unsuspected about the destruction of that State, innocent even in their own minds of revolutionary motives.
The exodus began.
At first it was logical enough. The Aluminum Trust, the Thorium Trust, the Germanium Trust put their plants aloft bodily, to mine the planets. The Steel Trust made it possible for the rest, for it had turned Mars into the Pittsburgh of the solar system, and lulled the doubts of the State.
But the Thorium TrustТs Plant No. 8 never came back. The revolution against the planar culture began as simply as that.
The first of the Okie cities soared away from the solar system, looking for work among the colonistsЧcolonists left stranded among the stars by the ebb tide of Western civilization. The new culture began among these nomad cities, and before long Earth was virtually deserted.
But Earth laws, though much changed, survived. It was still possible to make a battleship, and the Okies were ungainly. Steam shovels, by and large, had been more characteristic of the West than tanks had been, but in a fight between the two the outcome was predictable; that situation never changed. The cities were the citizensЧbut there were still police.

AND in the Rift, where there were no police, a city was burning. It was all over in a few minutes. The city bucked and toppled in a maelstrom of lightning. Feeble flickers of resistance spat around its edgesЧand then it no longer had any edges. Sections of it broke off, and melted like
wraiths. From its ardent center, a few hopeless life ships shot out into the gap; whatever was causing the destruction let them go. No conceivable life ship could live long enough to cross the Rift.
Amalfi cut in the audio circuit, filling the control room with a howl of static. Far behind the wild blasts of sound, a tiny voice was shouting desperately:
УRebroadcast if anyone hears us. Repeat: we have the fuelless drive. WeТre destroying our model and evacuating our passenger. Pick him up if you can. WeТre being blown up by a bindlestiff. Rebroadcast ifЧФ
Then there was nothing left but the skeleton of the city, glowing whitely, evaporating in the blackness. The pale, innocent light of the guide-beam for a Bethe blaster played over it, but it was still impossible to see who was wielding the weapon. The Dinwiddie circuits in the proxy were compensating for the glare, so that nothing was coming through to the screen that did not shine with its own light.
The terrible fire died slowly, and the stars brightened. As the last spark flared and went out, a shadow loomed against the distant starwall. Hazieton drew his breath in sharply.
УAnother city! So some outfits really do go bindlestiff. And we thought we were the first out here!Ф
Amalfi nodded, feeling a little sick. That one city should destroy another was bad enough. But it was even more of a wrench to realize that the whole scene was virtually ancient history. Ultrawave transmission was faster than light, but by no means instantaneous; the dark city had destroyed its smaller counterpart nearly two years ago, and must now be beyond pursuit. It was even beyond identification, for no orders could be sent now to the proxy which would result in any action until another two years had passed.
УYouТd think some heavy thinker on Earth wouldТve figured out a way to make Diracs compact enough to be mounted in a proxy,Ф he grumbled. УThey havenТt got anything better to do back there.Ф
Hazleton had no difficulty in penetrating to the speechТs real meaning. He said, УMaybe we can still smoke Сem out, boss.Ф
УNot a chance. We canТt afford a side jaunt.Ф
УWell, IТll send out a general warning on the Dirac,Ф Hazie
ton said. УItТs barely possible that the cops will be able to invest the Rift before the Сstiff gets out.Ф
УThatТll trap us neatly, wonТt it? Besides, that bindlestiff isnТt going to leave the Rift.Ф
УEh? How do you know?Ф
УDid you hear what the SOS said about a fuelless drive?Ф
УSure,Ф Hazieton said uneasily, Уbut the guy who knows how to build it must be dead by now, even if he escaped the burning.Ф
УWe canТt be sure of thatЧand thatТs the one thing that the Сstiff has to make sure of. If they get ahold of it, Сstiffs wonТt be a rarity any more. ThereТll be widespread piracy throughout the galaxy!Ф
УThatТs a big statement, Amalfi.Ф
УThink, Mark. Pirates died out a thousand years ago on Earth when sailing ships were replaced by fueled ships. The fueled ships were fasterЧbut couldnТt themselves become pirates, because they had to touch civilized ports regularly to coal up. WeТre in the same state. But if that bindlestiff can actually get its hands on a fuelless driveЧФ
Hazleton stood up, kneading his hands uneasily. УI see what you mean. Well, thereТs only one place where a life ship could go out here, and thatТs the wild star. So the Сstiff is probably there, too, by now.Ф He looked thoughtfully at the screen, now glittering once more only with anonymous stars. УShall I send out the warning or not?Ф
УYes, send it out. ItТs the law. But I think itТs up to us to deal with the Сstiff; weТre familiar with ways of manipulating strange cultures, whereas the cops would just smash things up if they did manage to get here in time.Ф
УCheck. Our course as before, then.Ф
УNecessarily.Ф
Still the city manager did not go. УBoss,Ф he said at last, Уthat outfit is heavily armed. They could muscle in on us with no trouble.Ф
УMark, IТd call you yellow if I didnТt know you were just lazy,Ф Amalfi growled. He stopped suddenly and peered up the length of HazletonТs figure to his long, horselike face. УOr are you leading up to something?Ф
Hazleton grinned like a small boy caught stealing jam.
УWell, I did have something in mind. I donТt like Сstiffs, especially killers. Are you willing to entertain a small scheme?Ф
УAh,Ф Amalfi said, relaxing. УThatТs better. LetТs hear it.Ф

II.
THE wild star, hurling itself through the Rift on a course that would not bring it to the far wall for another ten thousand Earth years, carried with it six planets, of which only one was even remotely Earthlike. That planet shone deep, chlorophyll green on the screens long before it had grown enough to assume a recognizable disk shape. The proxies called in now, arrived one by one, circling the new world like a swarm of ten-meter footballs, eying it avidly.
It was everywhere the same: savagely tropical, in the throes of a geological period roughly comparable to EarthТs Carboniferous era. Plainly, the only planet would be nothing but a way station; there would be no work for pay there.
Then the proxies began to pick up weak radio signals.
Nothing, of course, could be made of the language; Amalfi turned that problem over to the City Fathers at once. Nevertheless, he continued to listen to the strange gabble while he warped the city into an orbit. The voices sounded ritualistic, somehow.
The City Fathers said: УTHIS LANGUAGE IS A VARIANT
OF PATTERN G, BUT THE SITUATION IS AMBIGUOUS.
GENERALLY WE WOULD SAY THAT THE RACE WHICH
SPEAKS IT IS INDIGENOUS TO THE PLANET, A RARE