"01 - Midnight at the Well of Souls" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

He thought back to the last batch. Three in that num-
ber came from a world that had even dispensed with
names and personal pronouns.

He wondered idly how different the human race was
at this point from the creatures of the city out there.
Even on worlds like his own home world it was like
this, really. True, they grew beards and group sex was
the norm, something that would have totally shocked
these people. His world had been founded by a group

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of nonconformists fleeing the technocratic commu-
nism of the outer spiral. But, in its own way, it was
as conformist as Varnett's home, he thought. Drop
Vamett into a Caligristian town and he would be made
fun of, called names, even, perhaps lynched. He
wouldn't have the beard, or the clothes, or the sex to
fit into Caligristo's life-style.

You can't be a nonconformist if you don't wear the
proper uniform.

He had often wondered if there was something deep
in the human psyche that insisted on tribalism. Peo-
ple used to fight wars not so much to protect their'own
life-style but to impose it on others.

That's why so many worlds were like these people's

Чthere had been wars to spread the faith, convert
the downtrodden. Now the Confederacy forbade that

Чbut the existing conformity, world to world, was the
status quo it protected. The leaders of each planet
sat on a Council, with an enforcement arm capable of
destroying any planet that strayed into "unsafe" paths
and manned by specially trained barbarian psycho-
paths. But these weapons of terror could not be used
without the actions of a majority of the Council. ,

It had worked. There were no more wars.

They had conformed the entire mass of humanity.

And so had the Markovians, he thought. Oh, the
size and sometimes the color and workmanship of the
cities had varied, but only slightly.