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

The martyr (as distinguished from the person who is surprised to find himself giving his life for
a cause) is very nearly the only person who is thoroughly convinced of death, both before and
after dying.
тАФThe Public Notes of Isidor Norm

The Secretary of Defense said, because he was essentially a simple man, just three simple words:
"You are insane."
The President of the United States, on the other hand, was an elected official and therefore
accustomed to tempering his words to the shorn. He used a good many more words. "You have gone
entirely out of your mind," he said, "and you belong in the bughouse with all the other bugs, and nuts, and
kooks."
Everett Carson, who had gone to the Secretary of Defense directly from a reasonably lengthy time of
contemplation in a quiet pew of his parish church, and who planned to return there, for a few minutes at
least, after leaving the President, said just the same thing to each man: "Well, sir, we live in strange
times."
"Damned strange," the President said, looking around the Oval Office with the opaque resignation
which seems to descend on all Presidents in that room, after a year or so. "I meanтАФwell, I mean very
strange times," he said.
But, damn it, the President thought behind his mask, it wasn't easy to think of Carson as an Associate
Secretary and a responsible career officer over at State. It wasn't that he acted like some sort of
preacher, not exactlyтАФand if he looked like one (the long lean sort), a good many State Department men
seemed to run to that type. But . . . well, the President, and most of official Washington, had always had
the uncomfortable feeling (which was perfectly correct) that this man Carson wasn't satisfied with
trundling off to church on Sunday morning and taking care of the matter of religion as normally as that.
There had always been the suspicion that Carson might be found in a church at any time at all:
Wednesday afternoon, for instance, or some perfectly ordinary Friday.
"Don't moderate your language in deference to me, sir," Carson was saying. "I've heard worse, you
know. At the Crystal Palace, for one thingтАФthe limited-level space-armaments conference. AndтАФ"
"Nevertheless," the President said irritably, "this proposition of yours is idiotic. Insane." He made a
sweeping gesture with one hand. "Ridiculous."
"If I may, sir," Carson began, and, when the President nodded, went on: "What have we got to
lose?"
"Five kids," the President said, in a voice his TV audience would not have recognized. "Five young,
suburban, well-brought-up children, average age sixteen, are in possession of an armed atomic bomb.
That silly magazineтАФthe one that published the mechanics of a Molotov cocktail a few years back,
during the riots!тАФran a technical breakdown on the things a few issues back. 'America's Shame: Death
at a Fingertip.' Something like that." Carson made a sympathetic noise. "And now theseтАФkids," the
President went on, "are established in a cabin outside the Denver suburbs, and, thanks to the miracle of
live-remote TV spy-eyes, have told the world that they are going to set the thing offтАФit's quite powerful
enough to wipe half of Colorado off the map, you knowтАФunless we agree to their terms."
"Yes, sir," Carson said, evenly, but still sympathetically. "And their terms would mean anarchy: the
destruction of the rule of lawтАФ"
"Which is the only alternative to cutting your neighbor's throat when you happen to disagree with
him," the President put in.
"Quite," Carson said. "The destruction of the rule of law, the destruction of this country and this
society . . . as we both clearly see. And, since we cannot agree to any such terms, and cannot allow them
to kill four to seven million peopleтАФor even take the chance of their doing soтАФwe must come up with
something else."
"Brilliant," the President said hopelessly. "A brilliant analysis. The dissection of the obvious ... oh,
damn it, CarsonтАФ"