"Lafferty, R A - Past Master" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lafferty R A)

"Oh, our failures were abysmal enough to sicken a scavenger, but we did come near to appreciating just how high F~ the challenge is. That world died, though history does notx record the event. So for that death, which was not quite a
total failure, we were given yet another life."
"On Astrobel" said Proctor with smiling contempt.
"Yes, here on Golden Astrobe," said Kingmaker with af-: fection. "Foreman says the other worlds all died, and in a sense he is right. This is the world that must not die. We: are-and I do mean to be flowery-the third and possibly, last chance of mankind. Foreman uses another count than: mine and I am never sure that we mean the same thing, but` I know what I mean. Another failure will finish us. If we: die here, that is the end of everything. Our contrivances the machines, which say that they will succeed us, can save neither themselves nor us. We have walked the fine line too',long and it almost disappears.
"How have we failed? For five hundred years everything: went right. We had success safe in our two hands."
"And dropped it," said Foreman. "In twenty years everything has come apart."
They were all cool, considering the howling menace out-.` side, and now perhaps within. But they had to pause for a: moment when the noise completely overwhelmed them wi
its waves.
"I'm puzzled," Kingmaker said when it was possible to be. heard again. "For days at a time the killers don't bother about you Foreman. And then they go wild to get at you, as now. I believe they'll have your life this time."
"For days at a time I am not clear in my own thinking," Foreman stated. "Today I am, and they sense what it is. But they're mistaken in my motives. Nobody has the welfare of Astrobe so much at heart as myself."
"We've had the sensor machines run a few logs on you,,. Foreman," Kingmaker said heavily. "It's certain that you'll= be murdered. Today, I believe. Your logs say within th
next several months at the most. You will be literally torn topieces, Foreman, your body dismembered. What fury but that of the mechanical killers could tear you apart as your logs indicate?"


"I suspect another such fury building up, Kingmaker. It will upset all my personal plans severely if I'm murdered today. I'll need the several months that my logs give me as possible."
"Why did' you have us meet you here, Fabian?" Proctor asked. "There are many stronger places where you could be better protected."
"Thus building has some curiosities of design that I had put in twenty years ago. It's my own building, and I know a way out."
"You belong to the Circle of the Masters the same as Kingmaker and I do," Proctor said. "You have as much to do with the programming as does anyone, and you understand it better than either of us. If something is wrong with the programming of the mechanical killers, then fix it. Certainly they should not attempt to kill you. They're programmed only to kill those who would interfere with the Astrobe dream."
"And by definition all members of the Circle of Masters are utterly devoted to the Astrobean dream, and are all of one mind. But even we three aren't of one mind. Kingmaker wants to continue the living death of Astrobe at all cost. You, Proctor, do not believe that there is anything very wrong with Astrobe; but I believe there is something very wrong with you. You are both attached in your own way to the present sickness. I want a death and resurrection of the thing, and the mechanical killers do not understand this."
Rending and screaming o f metal/ A crash deep beneath them that echoed through the floor.
"The building is going down," Kingmaker said. "We have only minutes. We must agree on our candidate for World President."
"We don't necessarily want a great man or even a good man," Proctor said. "We want a man who can serve as a catchy symbol, a man who can be manipulated by us."
"1 want a good man," Kingmaker insisted.
"I want a great man," Foreman cried, "and we've come to
believe that great men are nothing but myths. Let's get one
anyhowl A myth-man will satisfy Proctor, and it will do no
harm if hi 's a good man also:"



"Here is my list of possibilities," Kingmaker said, and began to read. "Wendt? Esposito? Chu? Foxx? Doane?" He paused and looked at the other two after each name, and they avoided his eyes. "Chezem? Byerly? Treva? Pottscamp?"
"We're not sure that Pottscamp belongs to the Center Party," Foreman objected. "We're not even sure that he's a man. With most of them you can tell, but he's like quicksilver."
"Emmanuel? Carby? Haddad? Dobowski? Lee?" Kingmaker continued. "Do you not think that one of them by some possibility-? No, I see that you don't. Are these really the best men in the party? The best men on Astrobe?"
"I'm afraid they are, Cosmos," Foreman said. "We're stuck fast."
There was a rending crash rising above the ocean of noise, and one of the mechanical killers splintered the upper part o f an interior door to the room and came through it, head and thorax. It contorted its ogre face and gathered to heave itself through. Then came something almost too swift to follow.
With a blindingly swift flick o f a hand knife Proctor struck the killer where the thorax emerges from the loriea. He killed it or demobilized it.
Proctor often showed this incredible speed of motion which seemed beyond the human. The mechanical killer dangled there, the upper part of him through the broken door. The thing had a purplish nightmarish ogre appearance designed to aright.
Kingmaker and Foreman were both shaking, but Proctor remained cool.
"He was alone," Proctor said. "They go in patrols of nine, and the other eight of his group are still howling in the hallway above. I can keep track of the things. Two other patrols have now entered the building, but they blunder around. All deliberate speed nowl We can't have more than two minutes left with all possible luck. Back to our businessl
"We know the next step. By recent decree all Earth Citizens are also Citizens of Astrobe. That doesn't necessarily make them better, but there's a psychological advantage in


reaching out for a man. It's true that Earth has shrunken in importance-but shrinking produces an unevenness; it thrusts up mountains the while it creates low places. There are new outstanding men on Earth even though the level has fallen dismally. How about Hunaker? Rain? Oberg? Yes, I know they sound almost as dismal as do the leaders of Astrobe. Quillian? Paris? Fine?"
"We're in a blind maze of midget men," Kingmaker said. "There are no real leaders. It's become all automatic. Let's go the whole way, then. The Programmed Persons propose once more that they manufacture the perfect candidate and that all parties endorse him. I'm tempted to go with them."
"We've been there before," Foreman protested. "It didn't work then, and it won't work now. The old-recension humans simply aren't ready to accept a mechanical man as world president. Remember, that's how Northprophet had his being. They fabricated him, some years ago, to be the perfect leader. And so he would have been-from their viewpoint. And, according to rumor, that is the origin of Pottscamp also. No, it's a human leader that we need. We must keep the balance of a human for president and a mechanical for surrogate president. A mechanical man can't stop the doom clock from striking on us. He's part of the clock."
"There's one other field of search," Kingmaker came in as if on cue. If he hadn't, Foreman would have had to suggest it himself ,and that would have taken the edge off it. "We need not limit ourselves to men now living. Chronometanastasis has been a working thing for a dozen years. Find a dead man who once led well. Let him lead again. It will catch the fancy of the people, especially if they guess it themselves and are not told it outright. There's a bit of mystery attached to a man who has been dead.
"But the dead of Astrobe will not do. A man doesn't get hoary enough in five hundred years. Let's go back to Earth for a really big man, or one who can be presented as really big. How about Plato?"
"Too cold, too placid," said Foreman. "He was the first and greatest of them, but actually he was a programmed person himself-no matter that he designed the program. He wrote once that a just man can never be unhappy. I want