"Frank Herbert - The Featherbedders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

'You don't really think -'
'Slorin have been unmasked on some worlds,' Smeg said. 'Natives have developed
situational protective devices. This has some of the characteristics of such a trap.'
'Then why investigate? Why not leave it alone until we're stronger?'
'Rick!' Smeg shuddered at the youth's massive ignorance. 'Other capsules may have
escaped,' he said.
'But if it's a Slorin down here, he's acting like a dangerous fool.'
'More reason to investigate. We could have a damaged pupa here, one who lost part of the
detail memory. Perhaps he doesn't know how to act - except out of instincts.'
'Then why not stay out of the town and probe just a little bit with the mindcloud?'
Rick cannot be trusted with this job, Smeg thought. He's too raw, too full of the youthful
desire to play with the mindcloud.
'Why not?' Rick repeated.
Smeg pulled the car to a stop at the side of the dirt road, opened his window. It was
getting hot - be noon in about an hour. The landscape was a hardscrabble flatness marked by
sparse vegetation and a clump of buildings about two miles ahead. Broken fences lined both
sides of the road. Low cottonwoods off to the right betrayed the presence of the dry
creekbed. Two scrofulous oaks in the middle distance provided shade for several steers. Away
on the rim of the batland, obscured by haze, there was a suggestion of hills.
'You going to try my suggestion?' Rick asked.
'No.'
'Then why're we stopping? This as far as you go?'
'No.' Smeg sighed. 'This is as far as you go. I'm changing plans. You will wait. I will go into
the village.'
'But I'm the younger. I'm - '
'And I'm in command here.'
'The others won't like this. They said -'
'The others will understand my decision.'
'But Slorin law says -'
'Don't quote Slorin law to me!'
'But-'
'Would you teach your grandfather how to shape a pupa?' Smeg shook his head. Rick must
learn how to control the anger which flared in this bodily creation. 'The limit of the law is the
limit of enforcement - the real limit of organized society. We're not an organized society.
We're two Slorin - alone, cut off from our pitiful net. Alone! Two Slorin of widely disparate
ability. You are capable of carrying a message. I do not judge you capable of meeting the
challenge in this village.'
Smeg reached across Rick, opened the door.
'This is a firm decision?' Rick asked.
'It is. You know what to do?'
Rick spoke stiffly: 'I take that kit of yours from the back and I play the part of a soil
engineer from the Department of Agriculture.'
'Not a part, Rick. You are a soil engineer.'
'But-'
'You will make real tests which will go into a real report and be sent to a real office with a
real function. In the event of disaster, you will assume my shape and step into my niche.'
'I see.'
 'I truly hope you do. Meanwhile, you will go out across that field. The dry creekbed is out
there. See those cottonwoods?'
'I've identified the characteristics of this landscape.'