"Leo Frankowski - Copernicks Rebellion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frankowski Leo)

Copernic
k's R
ebellio
n
LEO
A.FRANKOWSKI
 A Del Rey Book
BALLANTINE BOOKS тАв NEW YORK
 dedication

This is for Elaine Bowen, my ever perfect
lieutenant.
 Prologue




AN OLD sergeant downed his third pot of wine, belched, and
explained to the young private, "Kid, it's like this. You see
something needs doing, go ahead and do it. Don't ask nobody's
permission, because they'll tell you no. Officers got their positions
to protect and they can't get into no trouble if nothing happens.
"Just go ahead and do it. Then if it turns out right, you're a
hero. And if it goes wrong, you won't get into much trouble
because everybody knows you're just a dumb trooper anyway."

-Quoted from a dubious Cuniform Text, Ca. 3900 B.C.
 Chapter One
APRIL 21,1999



IT SHOULD be intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers
that our present civilization is faced with a number of serious,
possibly insurmountable problems.
Our basic resources are almost exhausted.
Over forty nations possess atomic arsenals, many of which are
large enough to eradicate all life on this planet.
The world's literacy level has dropped to less than fifty percent.
Pollutants are rendering major tracts of farmland sterile at a
time when more than eighty percent of our population is
undernourished.
Poor standards of sanitation, increased population pressure,
and ever-increasing geographical mobility have caused three
serious plagues in the last decade. Diseases have annihilated other
species; they could wipe out ours.
It seems likely that the Four Horsemen are about to ride in
earnest, and I can see no politically acceptable method of stopping
them. A technical, biological solution might be possible in ten or
twenty years, if civilization holds together that long.