"Harry Harrison - Planet Of The Damned (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Harry Harrison
Planet of the Damned




I

A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist"

"However" replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of
obligation."

STEPHEN CRANE




Sweat covered Brion's body, trickling into trie tight loincloth that was the
only garment he wore. The light fencing foil in his hand felt as heavy as a
bar of lead to his exhausted muscles, worn out by a month of continual
exercise. These things were of no importance. The cut on his chest, still
dripping blood, the ache of his overstrained eyes--even die soaring arena
around him with the thousands of spectators--were trivialities not worth
thinking about. There was only one thing in his universe: the button-tipped
length of shining steel that hovered before him, engaging his own weapon. He
felt the quiver and scrape of its life, knew when it moved and moved himself
to counteract it. And when he attacked, it was always there to beat him aside.

A sudden motion. He reacted--but his blade just met air. His instant of panic
was followed by a small sharp blow high on his chest.

"Touch!" A world-shaking voice bellowed the word to a million waiting
loudspeakers, and the applause of the audience echoed back in a wave of sound.

"One minute," a voice said, and the tune buzzer sounded.

Brion had carefully conditioned the reflex in himself. A minute is not a very
large measure of time and his body needed every fraction of it. The buzzer's
whirr triggered his muscles into complete relaxation. Only his heart and lungs
worked on at a

strong, measured rate. His eyes closed and he was only distantly aware of his
handlers catching him as he fell, carrying him to his bench. While they
massaged his limp body and cleansed the wound, all of his attention was turned
inward. He was in reverie, sliding along the borders of consciousness. The
nagging memory of the previous night loomed up then, and he turned it over and
over in his mind, examining it from all sides.

It was the very unexpectedness of the event that had been so unusual. The