"C. L. Moore - Greater Than Gods" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

union.
Half the United States lay in smoking ruins before the Great War ended. But
General George had builded well upon that most enduring of all foundations-the
faith of men. "Be fruitful and multiply," was a command his followers had
obeyed implicitly, and Spaulding had mighty resources of human brawn and human
obedience to draw upon.
The great general had died gladly for his dream, and he had not died in vain.
Half the world was united under his starry banners within a decade after his
death; the United World of his vision came into being less than fifty years
later.
With peace and blind faith and prosperity, Science City indeed came into its
own. And because a taste of power had made the Leaders hungry, the eyes of the
City turned upward toward starry space. During the command of the Fourth
Leader after the immortal General George, the first successful space voyage
was achieved. The first living man stood knee-deep in the dead pumice dust of
the moon and a mighty forward stride for mankind was recorded.
It was only a step. Mars came next, three generations later. After a brief and
bloody war, its decadent inhabitants surrendered and the
Seventh Leader began to have giddily intoxicating dreams of a United Solar
System- Time telescoped by. Generation melted into generation in changing
tides over a world population that seemed unaltering in its by now age-old
uniforms of George Blue. And in a sense they were unaltering. Mankind was
fixed in a mold-a good enough mold for the military life of the U. W.-the
United World. The Cory System had long ago become compulsory, and men and
women were produced exactly in the ratio that the Leaders decreed. But it was
significant that the Leader class came into the world in the old haphazard
fashion of the days before the legendary Dr. Cory's discovery.
The name of Cory was a proud one. It had long been a tradition in that famous
family that the founder's great System should not be used among themselves.
They were high among the Leader class. Several of the Leaders had borne the
surname of Cory, though the office of course was not hereditary, but passed
after rigid training and strict examination to the most eligible of the
Candidates Class when an old Leader passed his prime.
And among the mighty Corys, family resemblance was strong. Generations saw the
inevitable dilution of the original strain, but stubbornly through the years
the Gory features came and went. Sometimes only the darkly blond hair of the
first great Bill, sometimes the violet eyes which his pretty Marta had
bequeathed her son, sometimes the very face of young Bill Jr. himself, that
had roused an ache of pride and love in his father's heart whenever he saw
those beloved features.
The Gory eyes looked now upon two worlds, triumphantly regimented to the last
tiny detail. Mankind was proving his supremacy over himself-over his
weaknesses and his sentimental, selfish desires for personal happiness as
opposed to the great common good. Few succumbed to such shameful yearnings,
but when they did, every man was a spy against his neighbor, as stern as the
Leader himself in crushing these threats to the U. W.'s strength. It should be
the individual's holiest and most mystically passionate dream to sacrifice his
happiness for the Leader and the U. W., and the Leader and the United World
lived for the sole purpose of seeing that he did.
Marvelous was the progress of mankind. The elements had~ long since been