"Feedback" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Katherine)

They screamed and shouted, pushing, making threatening gestures at the man on the platform, lashing at him with the noise, trying to build his fear to the point where it would be visible and cowering. Someone in the crowd was waving a noose, shouting for his attention. Someone else was waving a corkscrew. He saw it.

They laughed at the comic horror of the threat, and laughed again at the manТs expression as he realized what it was.

They were in a clearing among trees which was the town picnic grounds. At the center, before the mob, was the oration platform, built around the base of the giant picnic oak.

On the rear of the platform the judges of the occasion finished arranging themselves and were ready.

УSilence.Ф

The mob quieted.

УWilliam C. Dunner, you are accused of teaching sedition Чmalign and unworthy doctrinesЧto our children, violating the trust placed in you.Ф He did not reply.

УHave you anything to say in your defense?С

The fluorescent lamp shone on the people grouped on the platform. Below, the light gleamed across the upturned faces of the mob as they watched the tall, stooped man who stood disheveled in the light, his hands tied behind him and a smear of blood on one cheek. He shook his head in negation. УI wouldnТt do anything against the children,Ф he said. They heard the faltering voice unclearly. УIТm sorry if it seems to you thatЧФ

УDo you or do you not teach subversion?Ф

The reply was clearer. УNot by my definition of the term, although I have heard usages thatЧФ

УAre you or are you not a seditioner?Ф

УYou would have to defineЧФ

A thick-armed young man standing by was given a nod by one of the judges and stepped forward and knocked the prisoner down. He started clumsily struggling to get up, hampered by his tied hands.

УJust like a seditioner, trying to hide behind words,Ф said someone behind Bruce in the crowd. Bruce nodded.

Seditioners must all be skilled with words as their weapon, for, though it had been twenty years since any hostile foreign power existed to assist and encourage treachery, there seemed to be more and more seditioners. It was impossible to open a paper without reading an item of their being tarred and leathered, beaten up or fired, of newer and stricter uniformity oaths with stricter penalties of jailing and fines for those who were found later expressing opinions different from those beliefs they had sworn to. Yet in spite of this the number of seditioners increased. Their creed must be terrifyingly seductive and persuasive.

And Johnny had been exposed to those words! The shy tall teacher who was supposed to be Уso good with children,Ф whom he and Pam had hospitably invited to dinner several times, had repaid their hospitality with treachery.

Bruce felt the anger rising in him, and the fear. It must never happen again!

УWeТve got to find every crawling seditioner in Fairfield right now, and get rid of them! WeТve got to get the names of the others from this sneak!Ф

УTake it easy,Ф said the man on his left, whose name he remembered vaguely as Gifford. УWeТre getting to that now.Ф The teacher had regained his feet and stood up to face the judges.

The questioning began again.

Off to one side a man had climbed to the rail and was tossing the knotted end of a rope towards a high thick branch of the oak above.

УWilliam Dunner, were you, or were you not, directed to teach subversion and disloyalty to our children?Ф

УI was not.Ф