"Dickson, Gordon - Dorsai 03 Soldier, Ask Not Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

It was a square of conflict.

So much already of the discovery I had made in the place of lightning was already beginning to work in my conscious mind. But almost immediately, this new acuteness of perception in me was momentarily interrupted by recognition of my own personal involvement in the situation.

Eileen threw me one white-faced glance as she saw me, but then looked directly back at Mathias, who sat neither white-featured nor disturbed. His expressionless, spade-shaped face, with its thick eyebrows and thick hair, still uniformly black although he was in his late fifties, was as cold and detached as usual. He, also, looked over at me, but only casually, before turning to meet Eileen's emotional gaze.

"I merely say," he said to her, "that I don't see why you should bother to ask me about it. I've never placed any restraints on you, or Tarn. Do what you want." And his fingers closed on the book that was face down on his knees as if he would pick it up again and resume reading.

' 'Tell me what to do!'' cried Eileen. She was close to tears and her hands were clenched into fists at her sides.

"There's no point in my telling you what to do," said Mathias remotely. "Whatever you do will make no difference-to you or me, or even to this young man, over here-" he broke off and turned to me. "Oh, by the way, Tarn. Eileen's forgotten to introduce you. This visitor of ours is Mr. Jamethon Black, from Harmony."

"Force-Leader Black," said the young man turning to me his thin, expressionless face. "I'm on attache duty here."

At that, I identified his origin. He was from one of the worlds called, in sour humor by the people of the other worlds, the Friendlies. He would be one of the religious, spartan-minded zealots who made up the population of those worlds. It was strange, very strange it seemed to me then, that of all the hundreds of types and sorts of human societies which had taken seed on the younger planets, that a society of religious fanatics should turn out, along with the soldier type of the Dorsai World, the philosopher type of the Exotics, and the hard-science-minded people of Newton and Venus, to be one of the few distinct great Splinter Cultures to grow and flourish as human colonies between the stars.

And a distinct Splinter Culture they were. Not of soldiers, for all that the other fourteen worlds heard of them most often as that. The Dorsai were soldiers-men of war to the bone. The Friendlies were men of Devotion-if grim and hair-shirt devotion- who hired themselves out because their resource-poor worlds had little else to export for the human contractual balances that would allow them to hire needed professionals from other planets.

There was small market for evangelists-and this was the only crop that the Friendlies grew naturally on their thin, stony soil. But they could shoot and obey orders-to the death. And they were cheap. Eldest Bright, First on the Council of Churches ruling Harmony and Association, could underbid any other government in the supplying of mercenaries. Only- never mind the military skill of those mercenaries.

The Dorsai were true men of war. The weapons of battle came to their hands like tame dogs, and fitted their hands like gloves. The common Friendly soldier took up a gun as he might take up an axe or a hoe-as a tool needing to be wielded for his people and his church.

So that those who knew said it was the Dorsai who supplied soldiers to the sixteen worlds. The Friend-lies supplied cannon fodder.

However, I did not speculate upon that, then. In that moment my reaction to Jamethon Black was only one of recognition. In the darkness of his appearance and his being, in the stillness of his features, the remoteness, the somehow impervious quality like that which Padma possessed-in all these I read him plainly, even without my uncle's introduction, as one of the superior breed from the younger worlds. One of those with whom, as Mathias had always proved to us, it was impossible for an Earth man to compete. But the preternatural alertness from my just-concluded experience at the Encyclopedia Project was back with me again, and it occurred to me with that same dark and inner joy that there were other ways than competition.

"... Force-Leader Black," Mathias was saying, "has been taking a night course in Earth history- the same course Eileen was in-at Geneva University. He and Eileen met about a month ago. Now, your sister thinks she'd like to marry him, and go back to Harmony with him when he's transferred home at the end of this week."

Mathias' eyes looked over at Eileen.

"I've been telling her it's up to her, of course," he finished.

"But I want someone to help me-help me decide what's right!" burst out Eileen piteously.

Mathias shook his head, slowly.

"I told you," he said, with his usual, lightless calm of voice, "that there's nothing to decide. The decision makes no difference. Go with this man-or not. In the end it'll make no difference either to you or anyone else. You may cling to the absurd notion that what you decide affects the course of events. I don't-and just as I leave you free to do as you want and play at making decisions, I insist you leave me free to do as I want, and engage in no such farce."

With that, he picked up his book, as if he was ready to begin reading again.

The tears began to run down Eileen's cheeks.

"But I don't know-I don't know what to do!" she choked.

"Do nothing then," said our uncle, turning a page of his book. "It's the only civilized course of action, anyway."

She stood, silently weeping. And Jamethon Black spoke to her.

"Eileen," he said, and she turned toward him. He spoke in a low, quiet voice, with just a hint of different rhythm to it. "Do you not want to marry me and make your home on Harmony?"