"Henry Kuttner - Beggars in Velvet UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

"Hello," said the stranger, coming in and perching himself oil the desk's edge. "I see you know me. We'll stay oral, if you don't mind. I can read your thoughts, but you can't read mine." He grinned. "No use wondering why, Burkhalter. If you knew, the paranoids would find out too. Now. My name's Ben Hobson." He paused. "Trouble, eh? Well, we'll kick that around later. First let me get this off my chest."
Burkhalter sent a swift glance at Heath. "There are paranoids in town. Don't tell me too much, unless-"
"Don't worry. I won't," Hobson chuckled. "What do you know about the Hedgehounds?"
"Descendants of the nomad tribes that didn't join the villages after the Blowup. Gypsies. Woods folk. Friendly enough."
"That's right," Hobson said. "Now what I'm telling you is common knowledge, even among the paranoids. You should know it. We've spotted a few cells among the Hedgehounds- Baldies. It started by accident, forty years ago, when a Baldy named Line Cody was adopted by Hedgehounds and reared without knowing his heritage. Later he found out. He's still living with the Hedgehounds, and so are his sons."
"Cody?" Burkhalter said slowly. "I've heard stories of the
Cody-"
"Psychological propaganda. The Hedgehounds are barbarians. But we want 'em friendly and we want to clear the way, for joining them, if that ever becomes necessary. Twenty years ago we started building up a figurehead in the forests, a living symbol who'd be overtly a shaman and really a delegate for us. We used mumbo-jumbo. Line Cody dressed up in a trick suit, we gave him gadgets, and the Hedgehounds finally developed the legend of the Cody-a sort of benevolent woods spirit who acts as supernatural monitor. They like him, they obey him, and they're afraid of him. Especially since he can appear in four places at the same time." "Eh?" Burkhalter said.
"Cody had three sons," Hobson smiled. "It's one of them you'll see today. Your friend Selfridge has fixed up a little plot. You're due to be murdered by one of the Hedgehound chiefs when that delegation gets here. I can't interfere personally, but the Cody will. It's necessary for you to play along. Don't give any sign that you expect trouble. When the Cody steps in, the chiefs will be plenty impressed."
Heath said, "Wouldn't it have been better not to tell Burkhalter what to expect?"
"No. For two reasons. He can read the Hedgehounds' minds-I give him carte blanche on that-and he must string along with the Cody. O.K., Burkhalter?" "O.K." the consul nodded.
"Then I'll push off." Hobson stood up, still smiling. "Good luck."
"Wait a minute," Heath said "What about Selfridge?" "Don't kill him. Either of you. You know no Baldy must ever duel a non-Baldy."
Burkhalter was scarcely listening. He knew he must mention the thought he had surprised in Barbara Pell's mind, and he had been putting off the moment when he must speak her hateful name, open the gates of his thoughts wide enough to let her image slip back in, beautiful image, beautiful slender body, bright and dangerous and insane mind-
"I saw one of the paranoids in town a while ago," he said. "Barbara Pell. A nasty job, that woman. She let slip something about their plans. Covered up too fast for me to get much, but you might think about it. They're up to something planned for fairly soon, I gathered."
Hobson smiled at him. "Thanks. We're watching them.
We'll keep an eye on the woman too. All right, then. Good luck."
He went out. Burkhalter and Heath looked at one another.
The Mute walked slowly down the path toward the village. His mouth was pursed as he whistled; his plump cheeks vibrated. As he passed a tall pine he abruptly unsheathed his dagger and sprang around the tree. The man lurking there was caught by surprise. Steel found its mark unerringly. The paranoid had time for only one desperate mental cry before he died.
Hobson wiped his dagger and resumed his journey. Under the close-cropped brown wig a mechanism, shaped like a skull-cap, began functioning. Neither Baldy nor telepath could receive the signals Hobson was sending and receiving now.
"They know I'm here."
"Sometimes they do," a soundless voice came back. "They can't catch these modulated frequencies the helmets use, but they can notice the shield. Still, as long as none of 'em know why-"
"I just killed one."
"One less of the bichos," came the coldly satisfied response. "I think I'd better stay here for a while. Paranoids have been infiltrating. Both Heath and Burkhalter think so. There's some contingent plan I can't read yet; the paranoids are thinking about it only on their own band."
"Then stay. Keep in touch. What about Burkhalter?"
"What we suspected. He's in love with the paranoid Barbara Pell. But he doesn't know it."
Both shocked abhorrence and unwilling sympathy were in the answering thought. "I can't remember anything like this ever happening before. He can read her mind; he knows she's paranoid-"
Hobson smiled. "The realization of his true feelings would upset him plenty, Jerry. Apparently you picked the wrong man for this job."
"Not from Burkhalter's record. He's always lived a pretty secluded life, but his character's above reproach. His empathy standing was high. And he taught sociology for six years at New Yale."
"He taught it, but I think it remained remote. He's known Barbara Pell for six weeks now. He's in love with her."
"But how-even subconsciously? Baldies instinctively hate and distrust the paranoids."
Hobson reached Sequoia's outskirts and kept going, past the terraced square where the blocky, insulated power station sat. "So it's perverse," he told the other Mute. "Some men are attracted only to ugly women. You can't argue with a thing like that. Burkhalter's fallen in love with a paranoid, and I hope to heaven he never realizes it. He might commit suicide. Or anything might happen. This is-" His thought moved with slow emphasis. "This is the most dangerous situation the Baldies have ever faced. Apparently nobody's paid much attention to Self ridge's talk, but the damage has been done. People have listened. And non-Baldies have always mistrusted us. If there's a blowoff, we're automatically the scapegoats."
"Like that, Ben?"
"The pogrom may start in Sequoia."
Once the chess game had started, there was no way to stop it. It was cumulative. The paranoids, the warped twin branch of the parallel telepathic mutation, were not insane; there was a psychoneurotic pathology. They had only one basic delusion. They were the super race. On that foundation they built their edifice of planetary sabotage.
Non-Baldies outnumbered them, and they could not fight the technology that flourished in the days of decentralization. But if the culture of the non-Baldies were weakened, wrecked-
Assassinations, deftly disguised as duels or accidents; secret sabotage in a hundred branches, from engineering to publishing; propaganda, carefully sowed in the proper places- and civilization would have headed for a crack-up, except for one check.
The Baldies, the true, non-paranoid mutation, were fighting for the older race. They had to. They knew, as the blinded paranoids could not, that eventually the non-Baldies would learn of the chess game, and then nothing could stop a worldwide pogrom.
One advantage the paranoids had, for a while-a specialized band on which they could communicate telepathically, a wave length which could not be tapped. Then a Baldy technician had perfected the scrambler helmets, with a high-frequency modulation that was equally untappable. As long as a Baldy wore such a helmet under his wig, his mind could be read only by another Mute.
So they came to be called, a small, tight group of exterminators, sworn to destroy the paranoids completely-in effect,
a police force, working in secret and never doffing the helmets which shut them out from the complete rapport that played so large a part in the psychic life of the Baldy race.
They had willingly given up a great part of their heritage. It was a curious paradox that only by strictly limiting their telepathic power could these few Baldies utilize their weapon against the paranoids. And what they fought for was the time of ultimate unification when the dominant mutation had become so numerically strong that in all the world, there would be no need for mental barriers or psychic embargoes.
Meanwhile the most powerful of the Baldy race, they could never know, except within a limited scope, the subtle gratification of the mental round-robins, when a hundred or a thousand minds would meet and merge into the deep, eternal peace that only telepaths can know.
They, too, were beggars in velvet.
in
Burkhalter said suddenly, "What's the matter with you, Duke?"
Heath didn't move. "Nothing."
"Don't give me that. Your thoughts are on quicksand."
"Maybe they are," Heath said. "The fact is, I need a rest. I love this work, but it does get me down sometimes."
"Well, take a vacation."