"Laurence M. Janifer - Count Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Janifer Laurence M)

There exists, first, a class of statements dealing with events which, to the best of present knowledge,
appear objectively true, and, second, a class dealing with such various public beliefs as have acquired
among the multitude the same force as members of the first class. The duty of an official dealing with the
public, therefore, is usually to adjust matters in such a way that events objectively within the scope of the
first class are made to appear events within the scope of the second. As the multitude immovably believes
that it is primarily fixed upon truthтАФperhaps the most usual of the second class of statementsтАФits belief
may not be deniedтАФnor, as a rule, can this mythical belief serve as a basis for action in the objective
world.
The Public Notes of Isidor Norin
(Minister for the Dichtung, c. 2300 A. D.)

CAPITAL COMPLEX:
CAPITAL CITY:
1500 H., 27 MAY 2113
"If we're ever going to establish a self-sustaining colony we have to support it now; that ship has to
go out."
Freeman looked at the round, red, decisive face of Liam Harcourt and sighed. A meeting of the
Council, even an informal one, was far from the best place to give Harcourt a lesson in the elementary
rules of dealing with human beingsтАФif, after all, there were any such rules. But the Minister for Public
Order had to be sat onтАФan imperative at least as insistent as Harcourt's own that ship has to go out,
and as important. More: he had to be made to understand. The damned fool had, as of May 2113, the
ear of the emperor, and a good deal of influence with Dace and the rest of the Interplanetary Flight
people as well; and neither Walther IV, nor the respected Dr. Dace, was the sort of paragon, it
appeared, of whom Dall Freeman dreamed: a man immune to irrelevant personal influence. Rule one,
perhaps: there are no paragons.
However: "I see," he said, as mildly as possible. No minister present showed the least surprise at the
tone. It had been a long time, Freeman supposed, since he had trained himself into
Old-Mildness-Whenever-Possible, and though recognizable outbreaks of the old Unreconstructed
Bastard occurred, he took as a minor triumph, all in all, that the new character had become accepted
asтАФquite normal. Quite predictable. "The ship has to go out," he went on in the same tone. "We all see
that much, Liam. But it cannot go out this week. And there seems no way whatever of arguing with that
limitation."
Harcourt made a sound two-thirds of the way from a cough toward a dog's wet bark. "I've heard
quite a lot of argument with it," he said, and sent a fast, heavy look around the Council table.
Prater Shaw blinked behind his enormous imitation-ancients' spectacles, and leaned forward as if he
were eager for his cue. "Oh, scientists,"he said, with immense high-tenor scorn. Behind the facade of
Old Mildness-Whenever-Possible, the Unreconstructed Bastard began to curse rapidly, steadily and
explosively. "They're not practical men, Lee," Prater went on, as if he were saying something totally
new. "Surely you know that. They just don't understand the way most people think, that's all. And we
have to take that into account the very firstтАФ"
"Most people," Harcourt saidтАФa trombone interrupting an English-horn soloтАФ"don't think. And I
won't bother bandying idiocies even with a Minister for . . . what's the new title? . . . Travel and
Communications."
Freeman forced himself to interrupt the Unreconstructed Bastard's picturesque, if silent, soliloquy.
"We don't really need to fight about this, you know, between ourselves." The four other ministers present
helped out with a background mutter of agreement; and Prater, of course, with several more blinks,
chimed in.
"Oh, I had no intentionтАФ"
"Yes," Harcourt said dully, "we know that. You seldom have." And, while Prater was apparently
sorting that one out for possible insults, the big red-faced man went on. "I don't give twenty credits for