"Blish, James - Pheonix Planet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

"How about these people in the cities--the 'turnies'?"
"They ain't fit to talk about," said the belted man. "They're the only things
that lets us live with ourselves. We ran, but they went to the invaders and
played stool-pigeon and bloodhound. These guys hunt us out, and get nice clothes
and food and women for it."
"Rubbing you out. Why?" Doesn't matter, Marshall. Dead, Marshall.
"I dunno. We put up a hell of a fight for a while. I think they're afraid of us.
I don't think they're much good as fighters; we panicked 'em half a dozen times.
With stuff like they had we coulda held 'em off."
Gregory Marshall got up slowly. Anne was dead. Of course. He had come back to
his home just in time for its final destruction. There were only two things to
do, and suicide was not in Gregory Marshall's nature. He had fought a whole
planet once for his own. Little sparks of hatred flared in his eyes.
"We aren't licked yet," he said.



CHAPTER III of PHOENIX PLANET



A RELUCTANT COUNCIL of war sat in the rickety shack of Brains Barret, the man
with the belt. It was made up of Barret, Gregory Marshall, a shabby aide of
Barret's, and the leader of a neighboring community, Leland by name. Leland,
despite his nondescript dress, reminded Marshall of that old story about the
Britisher in the jungle; he had tried to battle his beard and keep as clean as
possible. He had been an engineer at one time.
"You don't get the layout at all," this visiting potentate told Marshall flatly.
"What you suggest is impossible. The invaders, whoever they are, live entirely
within their own cities, surrounded by batteries of those death-ray projectors.
Any movement on our part will be spotted instantly by the turnies. It's hard
enough for us to keep alive as it is."
"Exactly," said Marshall. "As you are you're scurrying from rat-hole to
rat-hole, and being rubbed out one by one. If this setup of Barret's is anything
to go by, you've got about one woman for every six men; you're eating bark and
bird's eggs; and eventually you're picked off. You're being exterminated. All
right. The best defense, as somebody said long ago, is an offense."
"Have you seen the city to the west?" the aide asked softly.
A swift vision passed through Marshall's mind--the shining, dreamlike pyramid of
metal and glass rising from the endless wilderness, moving in smooth lines from
the spire in the center to the dome-like, squat pillboxes at the periphery. An
amazing, alien thing, rising evilly from the green Earth. For an instant his
plans seemed transparent, ghost-like, futile, before the civilization which had
raised that astounding metropolis in so short a time. Then he thought of Anne,
and the hate-lightning blazed in his eyes.
"Yes," he said. "I've seen the city. And there are certain things about it that
are very significant to me. According to your story, and from what I've seen
it's all too true, all effective resistance to the invaders has been destroyed.
Yet that city, built after the battle was all over, is fortified like it was
expecting Attila the Hun any minute."