"Henry Kuttner - Don't Look Now" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

"That's what I mean. From our viewpoint, there's no sense to it. We do things illogically, but only because they tell us
to. Everything we do, almost, is pure illogic. Poe's Imp of the PerverseтАФyou could give it another name beginning with
M. Martian, I mean. It's all very well for psychologists to explain why a murderer wants to confess, but it's still an
illogical reaction. Unless a Martian commands him to."

"You can't be hypnotized into doing anything that violates your moral sense," the brown man said triumphantly.

Lyman frowned. "Not'-by'another human, but you can by a Martian. I expect they got the upper hand when we didn't
have more than ape-brains, and they've kept it ever since. They evolved as we did, and kept a step ahead. Like the
sparrow on the eagle's back who hitch-hiked till the eagle reached his ceiling, and then took off and broke the altitude
record. They conquered the world, but nobody ever knew it. And they've been ruling ever since."

"ButтАФ"

"Take houses, for example. Uncomfortable things. Ugly, inconvenient, dirty, everything wrong with them. But when
men like Frank Lloyd Wright slip out from under the Martians' thumb long enough to suggest something better, look
how the people react. They hate the thought. That's their Martians, giving them orders."

. "Look. Why should the Martians care what kind of houses we live in? Tell me that."

Lyman frowned. "I don't like the note of skepticism I detect creeping into this conversation," he announced. '''They
care, all right. No doubt about it. They live in our houses. We don't build for our convenience, we build, under order,
for the .Martians, the way they want it. They're very much concerned with everything we do. And the more senseless,
the more concern.

"Take wars. Wars don't make sense from any human viewpoint. Nobody really wants wars. But we go right on having
them. From the Martian viewpoint, they're useful. They give us a spurt in technology, and they reduce the excess
population. And there are lots of other results, too. Colonization, for one thing. But mainly technology. In peacetime, if
a guy invents jet propulsion, it's too expensive to develop commercially. In wartime, though, it's got to be developed.
Then the Martians can use it whenever they want. They use us the way they'd use tools orтАФor limbs. And nobody
ever really wins a warтАФexcept the Martians."

The man in the brown suit chuckled. "That makes sense," he said. "It must be nice to be a Martian."

"Why not? Up till now, no race ever successfully conquered and ruled another. The underdog could revolt or absorb.
If you know you're being ruled, then the ruler's vulnerable. But if the world doesn't knowтАФand it doesn'tтАФ

"Take radios," Lyman continued, going off at a tangent. "There's no earthly reason why a sane human should listen to
a

radio. But the Martians make us do it. They like it. Take bathtubs. Nobody contends bathtubs are comfortableтАФfor us.
But they're fine for Martians. All the impractical things we keep on using, even though we know they're impracticalтАФr'

"Typewriter ribbons," the brown man said, struck by the thought. "But not even a Martian could enjoy changing a
typewriter ribbon."

Lyman seemed to find that flippant. He said that he knew all about the Martians except for one thingтАФtheir
psychology.