"Blish, James - To Pay the Piper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

America's surviving thirty-five million "sane" people who
didn't have some such tic. Not now, not after twenty-five years
of underground life.
"He knows it's impossible, doesn't he?" Mudgett demanded
abruptly.
"Of course he doesn't," Carson said impatiently. "He
doesnt know any more about the real nature of the project
than the people do. He thinks the 'educating' we do is in
some sort of survival technique. . . . That's what the papers
think, too, as you can plainly see by the way they loaded that
editorial."
"Urn. If we'd taken direct control of the papers in the
first place . . ."
Carson said nothing. Military control of every facet of
civilian life was a fact, and Mudgett knew it. He also knew
that an appearance of freedom to think is a necessity for the
human mindand that the appearance could not be main-
tained without a few shreds of the actuality.
"Suppose we do this," Mudgett said at last. "Hamelin's
position in the State Department makes it impossible for us
to muzzle him. But it ought to be possible to explain to him
that no unprotected human being can live on the surface,
no matter how many Merit Badges he had for woodcraft and
first aid. Maybe we could even take him on a little trip top-
side; I'll wager he's never seen it."
"And what if he dies up there?" Carson said stonily. "We
lose three-fifths of every topside party as it isand Hamelin's
an inexperienced"
"Might be the best thing, mightn't it?"
"No," Carson said. "It would look like we'd planned it
that way. The papers would have the populace boiling by the
next morning."
Mudgett groaned and nibbled another double row of inden-
tations around the barrel of the pencil. "There must be some-
thing," he said.
"There is."
"Well?"
"Bring the man here and show him just what we are doing.
Re-educate him, if necessary. Once we told the newspapers
that he'd taken the course. . . well, who knows, they just
might resent it. Abusing his clearance privileges and so on."
"We'd be violating our basic policy," Mudgett said slowly.
" 'Give the Earth back to the men who fight for it.' Still, the
idea has some merits. . . ."
"Hamelin is out in the antechamber right now," Carson
said. "Shall I bring him in?"
The radioactivity never did rise much beyond a mildly
hazardous level, and that was only transient, during the second
week of the warthe week called the Death of Cities. The
small shards of sanity retained by the high commands on