"A Maze Of Death v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dick Phillip K)

7 Out of his many investments Seth Morley realizes only a disappointing gain-- measured in pennies.

8 Glen Belsnor ignores the warnings of his parents and embarks on a bold sea adventure.

9 We find Tony Dunkelwelt worrying over one of mankind's most ancient problems.

10 Wade Frazer learns that those whose advice he most trusted have turned against him.

11 The rabbit which Ben Tallchief won develops the mange.

12 Roberta Rockingham's spinster aunt pays her a visit.

13 In an unfamiliar train station Betty Jo Berm loses a precious piece of luggage.

14 Ned Russell goes broke.

15 Embittered, Tony Dunkelwelt leaves school and returns to the town in which he was born.

16 After the doctor examines her X-rays, Maggie Walsh knows that her condition is incurable.





A MAZE OF DEATH


1

His job, as always, bored him. So he had during the previous week gone to the ship's transmitter and attached conduits to the permanent electrodes extending from his pineal gland. The conduits had carried his prayer to the transmitter, and from there the prayer had gone into the nearest relay network; his prayer, during these days, had bounced throughout the galaxy, winding up--he hoped--at one of the godworlds.
His prayer had been simple. "This damn inventory-control job bores me," he had prayed. "Routine work--this ship is too large and in addition it's overstaffed. I'm a useless standby module. Could you help me find something more creative and stimulating?" He had addressed the prayer, as a matter of course, to the Intercessor. Had it failed he would have presently readdressed the prayer, this time to the Mentufacturer.
But the prayer had not failed.
"Mr. Tallchief," his supervisor said, entering Ben's work cubicle. "You're being transferred. How about that?"
"I'll transmit a thankyou prayer," Ben said, and felt good inside. It always felt good when one's prayers were listened to and answered. "When do I transfer? Soon?" He had never concealed his dissatisfaction from his supervisor; there was now even less reason to do so.
"Ben Tallchief," his supervisor said. "The praying mantis."
"Don't you pray?" Ben asked, amazed.
"Only when there's no other alternative. I'm in favor of a person solving his problems on his own, without outside help. Anyhow, your transfer is valid." His supervisor dropped a document on the desk before Ben. "A small colony on a planet named Delmak-O. I don't know anything about it, but I suppose you'll find it all out when you get there." He eyed Ben thoughtfully. "You're entitled to use one of the ship's nosers. For a payment of three silver dollars."
"Done," Ben said, and stood up, clutching the document.


He ascended by express elevator to the ship's transmitter, which he found hard at work transacting official ship business. "Will you be having any empty periods later today?" he asked the chief radio operator. "I have another prayer, but I don't want to tie up your equipment if you'll be needing it."
"Busy all day," the chief radio operator said. "Look, Mac--we put one prayer through for you last week; isn't that enough?"
Anyhow I tried, Ben Tallchief mused as he left the transmitter with its hardworking crew and returned to his own quarters. If the matter ever comes up, he thought, I can say I did my best. But, as usual, the channels were tied up by nonpersonal communications.
He felt his anticipation grow; a creative job at last, and just when he needed it most. Another few weeks here, he said to himself, and I would have been pizzling away at the bottle again as in lamented former times. And of course that's why they granted it, he realized. They knew I was nearing a break. I'd probably have wound up in the ship's brig, along with--how many were there in the brig now?--well, however many there were in There. Ten, maybe. Not much for a ship this size. And with such stringent rules.
From the top drawer of his dresser he got out an unopened fifth of Peter Dawson scotch, broke the seal, unscrewed the lid. Little libation, he told himself as he poured scotch into a Dixie cup. And celebration. The gods appreciate ceremony. He drank the scotch, then refilled the small paper cup.
To further enlarge the ceremony he got down--a bit reluctantly--his copy of The Book: A. J. Specktowsky's _How I Rose From the Dead in My Spare Time and So Can You_, a cheap copy with soft covers, but the only copy he had ever owned; hence he had a sentimental attitude toward it. Opening at random (a highly approved method) he read over a few familiar paragraphs of the great twenty-first century Communist theologian's apologia pro vita sua.
"God is not supernatural. His existence was the first and most natural mode of being to form itself."
True, Ben Tallchief said to himself. As later theological investigation had proved. Specktowsky had been a prophet as well as a logician; all that he had predicted had turned up sooner or later. There remained, of course, a good deal to know . . . for example, the cause of the Mentufacturer's coming into being (unless one was satisfied to believe, with Specktowsky, that beings of that order were self-creating, and existing outside of time, hence outside of causality). But in the main it was all there on the many-times-printed pages.
"With each greater circle the power, good and knowledge on the part of God weakened, so that at the periphery of the greatest circle his good was weak, his knowledge was weak-- too weak for him to observe the Form Destroyer, which was called into being by God's acts of form creation. The origin of the Form Destroyer is unclear; it is, for instance, not possible to declare whether (one) he was a separate entity from God from the start, uncreated by God but also selfcreating, as is God, or (two) whether the Form Destroyer is an aspect of God, there being nothing--"
He ceased reading, sat sipping scotch and rubbing his forehead semi-wearily. He was forty-two years old and had read The Book many times. His life, although long, had not added up to much, at least until now. He had held a variety of jobs, doing a modicum of service to his employers, but never ever really excelling. Maybe I can begin to excel, he said to himself. On this new assignment. Maybe this is my big chance.