"Tom Kratman - A Desert Called Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kratman Tom)

sometimes quite narrow. They are always an annoyance and they never went completely away.
It had been a long braking before Spirit of Peace assumed orbit over the new world. Give
Wallenstein her due, she's as competent a skipper as she is a bedmate. She's brought her command
in flawlessly. Now if she would only stop hinting that she wants me to back her for a rise in caste.
The Spirits тАУ Spirit of Peace, Spirit of Unity, Spirit of Harmony and Spirit of Brotherhood тАУ
were the newest ships in the fleet, the most recent having been launched just over one hundred and
twenty Earth years ago. The others were much older. One of the others, the UEPF Kofi Annan, was
nearly four centuries old. Earth could not build another. Even the ancient Annan was beyond her ability
to recreate.
And that was the problem. The new world, Terra Nova, could not build them or their like either,
yet. Yet was the operative word. The day was soon coming when the natives could build starships. The
day was coming when the natives could come up looking. Worse, the day was probably coming when
they would.
And Earth couldn't resist them now, thought the still youthful High-Admiral of the fleet, watching
the screen and lying in his extra wide bunk next to the peacefully snoring Wallenstein, not if they
manage to get off-planet and out of the system. Barbarians.
Robinson looked over at the captain and considered giving it another go. Why not? Despite his
centuries of age, the ADAF therapy had given him the vigor of a young man, along with the skill and
grace of a much older one. Anti-agathics were one of the truly remarkable breakthroughs of Earth's
medical science. It was no mean achievement and had contributed much to the peace, order and stability
of Old Earth that its critically important leadership actually had the time now to truly run things. Indeed,
no one given the full treatments had yet died of any natural cause. Perhaps, if Robinson lived to see his
third or fourth century, further breakthroughs might extend his life indefinitely. On the other hand, it had
been a century since the last DAF gene advance. At least, he could not think of another since. He wasn't
actually sure that anyone was even trying. Very few of even the very few progeny of the elites seemed
much interested in science anymore. They were fewer even than chose to serve in the United Earth Peace
Fleet and those were few enough.
Hands clasped behind his head, High-Admiral Robinson turned his attention to the dull gray ceiling,
thinking back on the Earth he had left so regretfully almost a dozen months before. Earth was such a
paradise compared to the hellhole below, teeming with about twelve times more people than a world that
size could indefinitely support. And most of those were poor, sometimes starving, and afflicted with more
disease than one could find at home outside of a laboratory.
Earth was peaceful, as well, and had been for more than three centuries. The structure ensured
peace, with the half million or so Class Ones supervising perhaps three million Class Twos, who in turn
supervised twenty or so million Class Threes, the entirety lording it over the half billion proles of Classes
Four through Six. The proles didn't really matter, of course. They were non-political now, living in peace,
growing the food and obtaining what raw materials could not be gotten from recycling. They did the
limited manufacturing still permitted and possible. They knew their place.
Barring a few malcontents like Wallenstein, everyone on Earth knew his or her place now. We're
not so foolish anymore as to leave decisions to the ignorant or the ambitious. Especially do we
keep the proles out of things. What would they have to offer, anyway?
Indeed, there was hardly any such thing as ambition anymore. One was born into a caste and
stayed there. Only within the Peace Force was social mobility still seen as desirable, and even there it
was highly constrained. The highly pneumatic Captain Wallenstein was unlikely ever to see Class One,
for all the time she had spent in a long life servicing her betters.
Whatever the drawbacks of the system, and Robinson knew them better than most, at least it was
generally peaceful.
The same could not be said for Terra Nova, which had become one huge slugfest, periods of peace
intermittent, at best, between bouts of war, reprisal, massacre and genocide. Robinson shook his head
with disgust.