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

may eventually provide some trustworthy figure, though I doubt it, for the number of bombs used, their
exact power, and so forth. But current belief merely asserts, without feeling the need for any proof
whatever, that the number was in fact thirteen." "Sure," Hamsun said, a bit distantly. "Heard it all my
life."
"The basic superstition, however, extends into the past beyond any records which the ancients were
kind enough to leave in the chaos our ancestors inherited. Quite a lot of material, actually, though with a
few odd gaps, and a certain . . . ah . . . reluctance among our immediate ancestors to pursue the records
at all. We must understand, you see, thatтАФthough the War was much more than a century ago, we call
those who suffered it ancients: a psychological mechanism to displace them further from us, to put the
entire period so far into the past that it need not be the concern of any living person. Ancients
indeedтАФwhen available material coherently displays a written history more than five thousand years
long! But popular terminology is inescapable."
In a short pause, Hamsun muttered: "I imagine so." No one else spoke.
"And in any case," Eberhardt went on, having apparently taken on new breath, "the horror of the
number thirteen can be traced back as far as written records go; doubtless it was common in the Stone
Age. There are numerous theories regarding its origin, none being finally convincing. Where it began, and
why, we simply do not know."
Another pause. The hiss of the tape filled the big chamber. "But ... well, did they take it so damned
seriously, back then? You'd thinkтАФ"
"Some, doubtless, did," Eberhardt said, "and some did not. The proportion seems to have favored . .
. ah . . . sanity more than it now does; we have records, at least, of a flight numbered fourteen."
"Sanity?" Hamsun asked, sounding shocked. "The . . . ancients?"
"Precisely," Eberhardt said calmly. "You make a common error, Richard: you assume that
societyтАФthat even one manтАФis all-of-a-piece, so to speak. The ancients were suicidally mad: the Clean
Slate War is sufficient proof of that. They were also, as regards . . . ah . . . serious superstition, more
sane than we. I believe that their various 'countries' were pervaded by aтАФmiasma, so to speakтАФof
generalized superstition, cropping up here and there in specific forms. But, certainly so far as thirteen is
concerned, we are less sane; we allow the superstition, which has no rational base and for which no
rational base is ever offered, to influence rational acts."
"Like this shoot," Hamsun said.
"Exactly," Eberhardt said at once. "One of the . . . ah . . . ancients said that 'progress is not total,'
which is entirely correct. All of a society does not progress at the same speed or in the same way, even
assuming that we can define what we mean by progress. And another ancient wrote, within a very few
years of the War, that his particular `country'тАФone of the more highly advancedтАФowned more television
sets than it did flush toilets. The shoot numbered thirteen was watched, via flat 3V in color and quite
satisfactory detail, by human beings many of whom sat in houses `protected' against witches and curses
by 'hex signs' and the like.



And we . . . we are attempting the colonization of Mars, and we may be hurtfully, even fatally
delayed by a superstition absolutely sense-free and older than recorded history."
"You really think they can stop us?" Hamsun said after a second or so. The three listening men sighed
and stretched somewhat, out of weariness; the psychologist's tendency to lecture was hard on everyone.
Dall Freeman felt, briefly, a bit sorry for Hamsun.
"I have no idea," the professional voice said calmly.
"Then maybeтАФ"
"But I have learned," the voice went on, with no change in tone whatever, "never to underestimate
human stupidity."