"Alan E. Nourse - Morley's Chain" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nourse Alan E)

The big man shrugged, uneasily. "Sure, there's a law, but who's going to enforce it?"
 Tam looked at him, a desperate tightness in his throat. "You could enforce it. You could if you
wanted to."

THE big man stared at him for a moment, then dropped his eyes, looked down at the desk.
Somehow this big body seemed smaller, less impressive. "I can't do it, Tam. I just can't."
"They'd have to listen to you!" Tam's face was eager. "You've got enough power to put it
acrossтАФthe court would have to stick to the lawтАФ"
"I can't do it." Dave drew nervously on his cigar, and the light in his eyes seemed duller, now. "If it
were just me, I wouldn't hesitate a minute: But I've got a wife, a family. I can't jeopardize themтАФ"
"Dave, you know it would be the right thing."
"Oh, the right thing be damned! I can't go out on a limb, I tell you. There's nothing I can do. I can let
you have money, Tam, as much as you needтАФI could help you set up in business, maybe, or
anythingтАФbut I can't stick my neck out like that."
Tam sat stiffly, coldness seeping down into his legs. Deep in his heart he had known that this was
what he had dreaded, not the fear of rebuff, not the fear of being snubbed, unrecognized, turned out.
That would have been nothing, compared to this change in the honest, forthright, fearless Dave Hawke he
had once known. "What's happened, Dave? Back in the old days you would have leaped at such a
chance. I would haveтАФthe shoe was on the other foot then. We talked, Dave, don't you remember how
we talked? We were friends, you can't forget that. I know you, I know what you believe, what you
think. How can you let yourself down?"
Dave Hawke's eyes avoided Tam's. "Times have changed. Those were the good old days, back
when everybody was happy, almost. Everybody but me and a few others тАФat least, it looked that way
to you. But those days are gone. They'll never come back. This is a reaction period, and the reaction is
bitter. There isn't any place for fighters now, the world is just the way people want it, and nobody can
change it. What do you expect me to do?" He stopped, his heavy face contorted, a line of perspiration
on his forehead. "I hate it," he said finally, "but my hands are tied. I can't do anything. That's the way
things areтАФ"
"But why?" Tam Peters was standing, eyes blazing, staring down at the big man behind the desk, the
bitterness of long, weary years tearing into his voice, almost blinding him. "Why is that the way things
are? What have I done? Why do we have this mess, where a man isn't worth any more than the color of
his skinтАФ"
Dave Hawke slammed his fist on the desk, and his voice roared out in the close air of the office.
"Because it was coming!" he bellowed. "It's been coming and now it's here тАФand there's nothing on
God's earth can be done about it!"
Tam's jaw sagged, and he stared at the man behind the desk. "Dave тАФthink what you're saying,
DaveтАФ"
"I know right well what I'm saying," Dave Hawke roared, his eyes burning bitterly. "Oh, you have no
idea how long I've thought, the fight I've had with myself, the sacrifices I've had to make. You weren't
born like I was, you weren't raised on the wrong side of the fenceтАФwell, there was an old, old Christmas
story that I used to read. Years ago, before they burned the Sharkie books. It was about an evil man
who went through life cheating people, hating and hurting people, and when he died, he found that every
evil deed he had ever done had become a link in a heavy iron chain, tied and shackled to his waist. And
he wore that chain he had built up, and he had to drag it, and drag it, from one eternity to the nextтАФhis
name was Marley, remember?"
"Dave, you're not making senseтАФ"
"Oh, yes, all kinds of sense. Because you Sharkies have a chain, too. You started forging it around
your ankles back in the classical Middle Ages of Earth. Year by year you built it up, link by link, built it
stronger, heavier. You could have stopped it any time you chose, but you didn't ever think of that. You
spread over the world, building up your chain, assuming that things would always be just the way they