"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 5 - Gods of Riverworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

"Humans don't like logic when it's inconvenient or dangerous for them," Nur said. "However, they'll submit to the test.
They have to to avoid suspicion."




I
I
If not telling a lie was the same as telling the truth, the results of the test were positive. If telling a lie could result in an
indication that the truth was being told, the results were negative.
Whether the indications were true or not, the eight seemed to be innocent.
Each sat in turn inside a closed transparent cubicle and answered questions from Burton or Nur. The field generated inside
the cubicle showed the wathan floating just above the head of the questionee and attached to it by a thread of bright scarlet
light. The wathan was a sphere that swelled and shrank, whirled or seemed to whirl, and flashed a spectrum of glowing
colors. This was the invisible thing that accompanied every person from the moment of conception and did not leave him
or her until that person was dead. It contained all that was a person, duplicating the contents of the mind and nervous
system and also giving him or her self-consciousness.
Burton had taken the first test, and Nur had asked him several questions to which he had to give an answer he believed to
be true.
"Were you born in Torquay, England, on March 19, 1821?"
"Yes," Burton said, and the Computer photographed his wathan at that second.
"When and where did you die the first time?"
"On Sunday, October 19, 1890, in my house in Trieste, that part of Italy then belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire."
The Computer took another photograph and compared the two. It then compared these two to others that had been taken
many years ago when Burton had been questioned by the Council of Twelve.
in Loga's destruc-
Gods of Riverworld / 41
Nur looked at the flashing display on a screen and said, "The truth. As you know it."
, That was one of the deficiencies of the test. If a person believed that he was telling the truth, the wathan indicated that he
was.
"That is the truth," Frigate said. "I read those dates many times when I was on Earth."
"Have you ever lied?" Nur said.
Burton, grinning, said, "No."
A narrow black zigzag shot over the surface of the wathan.
"The subject lies," Nur told the Computer.
On the screen appeared: PREVIOUSLY VERIFIED.
"Have you ever lied?" Nur said again.
"Yes."
The black lightning streak disappeared.
"Did you make Loga vanish?"
"No."
"Were you implicated with anyone tion?"
"Not that I know of."
"That's the truth, as far as you know it," Nur said after glancing at the screen. "Do you have any knowledge about anyone
who might have made Loga vanish?"
"No."
"Are you glad that Loga did vanish?"
Burton said, "What the hell?"
He could see the image of his wathan on a screen. It was glowing with orange overlaying the other shifting colors.
"You shouldn't have asked that!" Aphra Behn said.