"William Morrison & Frederik Pohl - Stepping Stone" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morrison William)

few examples of persons dealing in spoiled foodstuffs. But Chesley's thoughts were. Those fifty persons
had been picketing the Viceregal Deputy Zone Commander's Headquarters, asking for jobs. And, bam,
a violet flare; and they were all dead.
It didn't pay to be unemployed, that was the first conclusion he reached.
But what could he do about it? Dr. Pebrick, Chief Managing Chemist of the synthetic rubber works,
had made it very clear that he was lucky to hang onto his job, and there was no possibility whatever that
Chesley would be rehired.
He would have to get a job somewhere else. That was the second conclusion.
 Chesley sighed and finished his milk. "Say, Harry," he called. "Got a New York Times?"
"Yeah." The barkeep pulled a folded paper out of the otherwise empty bar-tools rack under the
counter. "Here."
"Thanks," said Chesley, opening it to the Help Wanted section. "And let me have a beтАФ"
"You mean," interrupted Harry, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the placard and the mike, "you
would like another glass of delicious, invigorating, one-hundred-per-cent pure milk, which the Viceroy
recommends above all other beverages for human consumption?"
"Yes," sighed Chesley. "Another milk."
The agency was crowded, but since it was the only one in the paper that had listed in its ad, Man,
chmcl trng, admstv pos, sal open, he had no choice but to wait out the line. It took nearly half a day,
which Chesley passed, as best he could, by conversation with the others in lineтАФguarded at first, then
more and more open, until the man ahead of him happened to glance up at the picture of the Viceroy that
hung on the wall over his head. He turned white; sweat broke out on his forehead; he slumped, caught
himself, started to speak, and then burst out of his place in line and raced back through the long hall to
the elevators.
There was a microphone under the picture.
Chesley shook his head ruefully and kept silent for the rest of the time. It didn't pay to talk too much.
The Viceroy wasn't everywhereтАФthough, being far from human, he was in an astonishing number of
places at astonishing times. But his Guard, the V.G., was in even more places all the time. Chesley had
passed one just outside the doorтАФa man in a blinding blue uniform, who parked blatantly near a fire
hydrant and strolled away. In a matter of seconds a traffic cop caught sight of the car and charged
toward it, fire in his eye and one hand dragging his summons pad out of his pocket. But then the cop
caught sight of the magic letters V.G. on the place where the license plate would have beenтАФif the
Viceregal Guard bothered with license platesтАФand he turned pale and staggered away as though he had
had a narrow escape.
Which he had.
Chesley shook his head again. It was hard to reconcile the idea of old Iry Morgenstern
down-the-block with the total and awful powers of a member of the V.G. But there were too many
things these days that couldn't be reconciled, he wasn't going to bother his head about them. The
Viceregal Guard served a function, he supposed. That is, if the Viceroy served a function, well, then the
Guard was pretty necessary. The Viceroy could reach down and strike any human, anywhere; but
apparently he couldn't find the human who was thwarting his efforts without a little on-the-spot help from
the V.G. He was perfectly capable of wiping out a whole city if it angered himтАФwitness Omaha, in the
second week of his reignтАФbut it happened that Omaha was not the site of any of his own special
projects. Most every other city in the world did have a high-priority Viceroy's Project goingтАФincreasing
the rate of births, building up human health, building cryptic objects for unknown purposesтАФoh, there
was no limit to the things the Viceroy wanted Earth to do in preparation for the landing of his own
extra-solar race. And it was the Viceregal Guard that was charged with seeing that they were done.
From the moment he arrived he had been recruiting, and paying well. It was his first human helpers who
had turned up at the offices of the radio and television networks with fabulous bundles of cash in their
pockets, who had rented Yankee Stadium for a fantastic price; and those human helpers were now the
colonels and generals and marshals and generalissimos of the V.G.