"Henry Kuttner - The Piper's Son UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kuttner Henry)

Burkhalter said patiently, "We can keep trying it from different angles until we find one that isn't too private. Suppose, for example, I asked you if you admired Darius."
Admiration ... and pine scent... and Burkhalter said quickly, "I'm out. O.K.?"
"Thanks," Quayle muttered. He turned on his side, away from the other man. After a moment he said, "That's silly- turning over, I mean. You don't have to see my face to know what I'm thinking."
"You have to put out the welcome mat before I walk in," Burkhalter told him.
"I guess I believe that. I've met some Baldies, though, that were... that I didn't like."
"There's a lot on that order, sure. I know the type. The ones who don't wear wigs."
Quayle said, "They'll read your mind and embarrass you just for the fun of it. They ought to be-taught better."
Burkhalter blinked in the sunlight. "Well, Mr. Quayle, it's this way. A Baldy's got his problems, too. He's got to orient himself to a world that isn't telepathic; and I suppose a lot of Baldies rather feel that they're letting their specialization go to waste. There are jobs a man like me is suited for-"
"Man!" He caught the scrap of thought from Quayle. He ignored it, his face as always a mobile mask, and went on.
"Semantics have always been a problem, even in countries speaking only one tongue. A qualified Baldy is a swell interpreter. And, though there aren't any Baldies on the detective forces, they often work with the police. It's rather like being a machine that can do only a few things."
"A few things more than humans can," Quayle said.
Sure, Burkhalter thought, if we could compete on equal footing with nontelepathic humanity. But would blind men trust one who could see? Would they play poker with him? A sudden, deep bitterness put an unpleasant taste in Burk-halter's mouth. What was the answer? Reservations for Baldies? Isolation? And would a nation of blind men trust those with vision enough for that? Or would they be dusted
off-the sure cure, the check-and-balance system that made war an impossibility.
He remembered when Red Bank had been dusted off, and maybe that had been justified. The town was getting too big for its boots, and personal dignity was a vital factor; you weren't willing to lose face as long as a dagger swung at your belt. Similarly, the thousands upon thousands of little towns that covered America, each with its pecular specialty -helicopter manufacture for Huron and Michigan, vegetable farming for Conoy and Diego, textiles and education and art and machines-each little town had a wary eye on all the others. The science and research centers were a little larger; nobody objected to that, for technicians never made war except under pressure; but few of the towns held more than a few hundred families. It was check-and-balance in most efficient degree; whenever a town showed signs of wanting to become a city-thence, a capital, thence, an imperialistic empire-it was dusted off. Though that had not- happened for a long while. And Red Bank might have been a mistake.
Geopolitically it was a fine set-up; sociologically it was acceptable, but brought necessary changes. There was subconscious swashbuckling. The rights of the individual had become more highly regarded as decentralization took place. And men learned.
They learned a monetary system based primarily upon barter. They learned to fly; nobody drove surface cars. They learned new things, but they did not forget the Blowup, and in secret places near every town were hidden the bombs that could utterly and fantastically exterminate a town, as such bombs had exterminated the cities during the Blowup.
And everybody knew how to make those bombs. They were beautifully, terribly simple. You could find the ingredients anywhere and prepare them easily. Then you could take your helicopter over a town, drop an egg overside-and perform an erasure.
Outside of the wilderness malcontents, the maladjusted people found in every race, nobody kicked. And the roaming tribes never raided and never banded together in large groups-for fear of an erasure.
The artisans were maladjusted too, to some degree, but they weren't antisocial, so they lived where they wanted and painted, wrote, composed, and retreated into their own private worlds. The scientists, equally maladjusted in other lines, retreated to their slightly larger towns, banding together in
small universes, and turned out remarkable technical achievements.
And the Baldies-found jobs where they could.
No nontelepath would have viewed the world environment quite as Burkhalter did: He was abnormally conscious of the human element, attaching a deeper, more profound significance to those human values, undoubtedly because he saw men in more than the ordinary dimensions. And also, in a way-and inevitably-he looked at humanity from outside.
Yet he was human. The barrier that telepathy had raised made men suspicious of him, more so than if he had had two heads-then they could have pitied. As it was-
As it was, he adjusted the scanner until new pages of the typescript came flickering into view above. "Say when," he told Quayle.
Quayle brushed back his gray hair. "I feel sensitive all over," he objected. "After all, I've been under a considerable strain correlating my material."
"Well, we can always postpone publication." Burkhalter threw out the suggestion casually, and was pleased when Quayle didn't nibble. He didn't like to fail, either.
"No. No, I want to get the thing done now."
"Mental catharsis-" Х>Х
"Well, by a psychologist, perhaps. But not by-"
"-a Baldy. You know that a lot of psychologists have Baldy helpers. They get good results, too."
Quayle turned on the tobacco smoke, inhaling slowly. "I suppose... I've not had much contact with Baldies. Or too much-without selectivity. I saw some in an asylum once. I'm not being offensive, am I?"
"No," Burbhalter said. "Every mutation can run too close to the line. There were lots of failures. The hard radiations brought about one true mutation: hairless telepaths, but they didn't all hew true to the line. The mind's a queer gadget-you know that. It's a colloid balancing, figuratively, on the point of a pin. If there's any flaw, telepathy's apt to bring it out. So you'll find that the Blowup caused a hell of a lot of insanity. Not only among the Baldies, but among the other mutations that developed then. Except that the Baldies are almost always paranoidal."
"And dementia praecox," Quayle said, finding relief from his own embarrassment in turning the spotlight on Burkhalter.
"And d. p. Yeah. When a confused mind acquires the tele-
pathic instinct-a hereditary bollixed mind-it can't handle it all. There's disorientation. The paranoia group retreat into their own private worlds, and the d. p.'s simply don't realize that this world exists. There are distinctions, but I think that's a valid basis."
"In a way," Quayle said, "it's frightening. I can't think of any historical parallel."
"No."
"What do you think the end of it will be?"
"I don't know," Burkhalter said thoughtfully. "I think we'll be assimilated. There hasn't been enough time yet. We're specialized in a certain way, and we're useful in certain jobs."
"If you're satisfied to stay there. The Baldies who won't wear wigs-"
"They're so bad-tempered I expect they'll all be killed off in duels eventually," Burkhalter smiled. "No great loss. The rest of us, we're getting what we want-acceptance. We don't have horns or halos."
Quayle shook his head. "I'm glad, I think, that I'm not a telepath. The mind's mysterious enough anyway, without new doors opening. Thanks for letting me talk. I think I've got part of it talked out, anyway. Shall we try the script again?"
"Sure," Burkhalter said, and again the procession of pages nickered on the screen above them. Quayle did seem less guarded; his thoughts were more lucid, and Burkhalter was able to get at the true meaning of many of the hitherto muddy statements. They worked easily, the telepath dictating re-phrasings into his dictograph, and only twice did they have tc hurdle emotional tangles. At noon they knocked off, and Burkhalter, with a friendly nod, took the dropper to his office, where he found some calls listed on the visor. He ran off repeats, and a worried look crept into his blue eyes.
He talked with Dr. Moon in a booth at luncheon. The conversation lasted so long that only the induction cups kept the coffee hot, but Burkhalter had more than one problem to discuss. And he'd known Moon for a long time. The fat man was one of the few who were not, he thought, subconsciously repelled by the fact that Burkhalter was a Baldy.
"I've never fought a duel in my life, Doc. I can't afford to."
"You can't afford not to. You can't turn down the challenge, Ed. It isn't done."
"But this fellow Reilly-I don't even know him." "I know of him," Moon said. "He's got a bad temper. Dueled a lot."
Burkhalter slammed his hand down on the table. "Its ridiculous. I won't do it!"
"Well," Moon said practically, "Your wife can't fight him. And if Ethel's been reading Mrs. Reilly's mind arid gossiping, Reilly's got a case."
"Don't you think we know the dangers of that?" Burkhalter asked in a low voice. "Ethel doesn't go around reading minds any more than I do. It'd be fatal-for us. And for any other Baldy."