"Michael McCollum - Man of Renaissance" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

enough to extricate themselves when they fell into one of the universe's traps."

"Trap?" the General muttered. "What are you talking about, Medico?"

"Why, the trap of nuclear weapons, General. What else would I be talking about?"

The priest folded his hands in a prayerful gesture, "It is refreshing to meet a medical man who is also an
adherent of the teachings of the church, Doctor Beckwith."

"You misunderstand, Padre. Whether nuclear weapons are the spawn of the devil is a point that I
happily leave to you clerics. No, the trap to which I refer is the obvious fact that they are too damned
easy to build."

"You're crazy!" the captain of ordnance who was Trujillo's second in command said from Beckwith's
right. "The Manhattan Project was one of the most complex ever undertaken. How can you call what
they did easy?"

"I do so, Capitan Villela, because the men who invented the bomb accomplished their feat with the aid of
mechanical calculators and vacuum tube technology. They knew nothing of semiconductors, lasers,
magnetic containment devices, or dozens of other machines available to pre-Catastrophe civilization. In
outlook, they were closer to the engineers of Queen Victoria's time than they were to the hi-tech warriors
of The Catastrophe. That they were able to succeed with their relatively primitive technology is an
indication of the ease of the their task."

"Your point, Medico?"

"Why, that nuclear weapons were invented too early. Humanity was not ready for them. Had the task
been significantly more difficult, it would have taken longer. That would have given us more time to
mature as a species and to develop countervailing technologies. As it was, the weapons of mass
destruction were introduced into a world woefully unprepared to deal with their consequences."

"They were more prepared than are we," the priest argued.

"Not necessarily, Padre."

Captain Villela blinked. "Surely, Sen├╡r Doctor, you are not suggesting that we are more advanced than
the ancients?"

Beckwith shrugged. "Not in all ways, certainly. Not even in most. But in some."

"What ways, Doctor Darol?" Espe asked.

"Many ways, Espe. If Aldo Finessa had been mauled by that javelina boar a hundred years ago, the
most advanced hospital the ancients possessed could have done little more than amputate his arm. Yet, it
was not a difficult matter for me to achieve full regeneration. Or cancer, the most dread disease of the
ancient world. I can cure it as easily as the common cold. We have come a long way since the days of
The Catastrophe, and not only in the field of medicine. Of course, we have an advantage that previous
generations did not."

"Advantage?"