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

don't see what he could do about it even if he did see through
it. It'd be all on the log and according to regs. All he could
report to the Council would be a suspicionand they'd prob-
ably discount it. Everybody knows that these second-class
types are quick to think they're being persecuted. It's my
theory that that's why they are persecuted, a lot of the time
at least."
"I don't follow you."
"The man I shipped under before I came on board the In-
defeasible," Averdor said, "was one of those people who don't
even trust themselves. They expect everybody they meet to
slip a. knife into them when their backs are turned. And there
are always other people who make it almost a point of honor
to knife a man like that, just because he seems to be asking
for it. He didn't hold that command long."
"I see what you mean," Corbel said. "Well, I'll think about
it."
But by the next ship's day, when Hoqqueah returned to
the greenhouse, Gorbel still had not made up his mind. The
very fact that his own feelings were on the side of Averdor
and the crew made him suspicious of Averdor's "easy" solu-
tion. The plan was tempting enough to blind a tempted man
to flaws that might otherwise be obvious.
The Adapted Man settled himself comfortably and looked
out through the transparent metal. "Ah," he said. "Our tar-
get is sensibly bigger now, eh. Captain? Think of it: in just a
few days now, we will bein 'the historical sensehome
again."
And now it was riddles! "What do you mean?" Corbel
said.
"I'm sorry; I thought you knew. Earth is the home planet of
the human race. Captain. There is where the basic form
evolved."
Gorbel considered this unexpected bit of information cau-
tiously. Even assuming that it was trueand it probably was,
that would be the kind of thing Hoqqueah would know about
a planet to which he was assignedit didn't seem to make
any special difference in the situation. But Hoqqueah had ob-
viously brought it out for a reason. Well, he'd be trottingout
the reason, too, soon enough; nobody would ever accuse the
Altarian of being taciturn.
Nevertheless, he considered turning on the screen for a
close .look at the planet. Up to now he had felt not the slight-
est interest in it.
"Yes, there's where it all began," Hoqqueah said. "Of course
at first it never occurred to those people that they might pro-
duce pre-adapted children. They went to all kinds of extremes
to adapt their environment instead, or to carry it along with
them. But they finally realized that with the planets, that
won't work. You can't spend your life in a spacesuit, or under