"Blish, James - Watershed" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

BOOK FOUR

WATERSHED

The murmurs of discontent Capt. Gorbel, being a military
man, thought of it as "disaffection"among the crew of the
R.S.S. Indefeasible had reached the point where they could
no longer be ignored, well before the ship had come within
fifty light years of its objective.
Sooner or later, Gorbel thought, sooner or later this idi-
otic seal-creature is going to notice them.
Capt. Gorbel wasn't sure whether he would be sorry or glad
when the Adapted Man caught on. In a way, it would make
things easier. But it would be an uncomfortable moment, not
only for Hoqqueah and the rest of the pantrope team, but for
Gorbel himself. Maybe it would be better to keep sitting on
the safety valve until Hoqqueah and the other Altarians
were put off onwhat was its name again? Oh yes. Earth.
But the crew plainly wasn't going to let Gorbel put it off
that long.
As for Hoqqueah, he didn't appear to have a noticing cen-
ter anywhere in his brain. He was as little discommoded by
the emotional undertow as he was by the thin and frigid
air the Rigellian crew maintained inside the battlecraft. Se-
cure in his coat of warm blubber, his eyes brown, liquid and
merry, he sat in the forward greenhouse for most of each
ship's day, watching the growth of the star Sol in the black
skies ahead.
And he talked. Gods of all stars, how he talked! Capt. Gor-
bel already knew more about the ancientthe very ancient
history of the seeding program than he had had any. desire
to know, but there was still more coming. Nor was the seed-
ing program Hoqqueah's sole subject. The Colonization Coun-
cil delegate had had a vertical education, one which cut in a
narrow shaft through many different fields of specialization
in contrast to Corbel's own training, which had been spread
horizontally over the whole subject of spaceflight without
more than touching anything else.
Hoqqueah seemed to be making a project of enlarging the
Captain's horizons, whether he wanted them enlarged or not.
"Take agriculture," he was saying at the moment. "This
planet we're to seed provides an excellent argument for taking
the long view of farm policy. There used to be jungles there;
it was very fertile. But the people began their lives as farmers
with the use of fire, and they killed themselves off in the same
way."
"How?" Gorbel said automatically. Had he remained silent,
Hoqqueah would have gone on .anyhow; and it didn't pay to
be impolite to the Colonization Council, even by proxy.