"Chad Oliver - Blood's a Rover" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oliver Chad)

тАЬI will help you with a field of your own,тАЭ said Conan Lang. тАЬWill you let me help you?тАЭ
The native looked at him and there was naked hate in his eyes. тАЬYou said you were my friend,тАЭ he
said. Without another word, he turned and left. He did not look back.
Conan Lang wiped the sweat from his forehead and went on with his work. The sensitive part of his
mind retreated back in to a dark, insulated corner and he let his training take over. He moved along,
asking questions, watching, taking mental notes.
A little thing, he thought.
A new kind of plant.


A week later, Conan Lang had completed his check. He sat by the evening cook fire with Julio,
smoking his pipe, watching the shadows in the field.
тАЬWell, we did a good job,тАЭ he said. тАЬItтАЩs awful.тАЭ
тАЬIt would have come without us,тАЭ Julio reminded him. тАЬIt does no good to brood about it. It is tough,
sometimes, but it is a small price to pay for survival.тАЭ
тАЬYes,тАЭ said Conan Lang. тАЬSure.тАЭ
тАЬYour results check out with mine?тАЭ
тАЬMostly. ItтАЩs the same old story, Julio.тАЭ
Conan Lang puffed slowly on his pipe, reconstructing what had happened. The new ricefruit had
made it valuable for a family to hang on to one piece of land that could be used over and over again. But
only a limited amount of the land could be used, because of natural factors like the presence or absence
of available water. The families that had not taken the plunge right away were virtually excluded, and the
society was divided into the landed and the landless. The landless gradually had to move further and
further from the main village to find land upon which to grow the older type of ricefruitтАФsometimes their
fields were so far away that they could not make the round trip in a single day. And they could not get
too far away and start over, because of the tribal warfare that had broken out between villages now that
valuable stores of ricefruit were there for the taking. The old joint family co-operation broke down, and
slaves became economically feasible.
Now that the village need not be periodically moved, it too became valuable and so was strongly
fortified for defense. One old chief, grown powerful with fields of the staple ricefruit, set himself up as a
king and the other chiefs went to work in his fields.
Of course, Sirius Ten was still in transition. While the old patterns were being destroyed, new ones,
less obvious to the untrained eye, were taking their place. Disintegration and reintegration marched hand
in hand, but it would be tough on the natives for a while. Process Corps techniques had speeded up the
action almost beyond belief, but from here on in the Oripesh were on their own. They would go on and
on in their individual developmentтАФalthough no two peoples ever went through exactly the same stages
at the same time, it was possible to predict a general planet-wide trend. The Oripesh would one day
learn to write, since they already had a crude pictographic system for ritual use. When the contact finally
came from the hostile stars in the future, what histories would they have written? Who would they
remember, what would they forget? Would there be any twisted legend or myth left that recalled the
long-ago time when the gods had come out of the mountains to change the lives of their people?
That was the way to look at it. Conan Lang tapped out his pipe on a rock. Just look at it like a
problem, a textbook example. Forget about the people, the individuals you could not help, the lives you
had made and the lives you had destroyed. Turn off that part of your mind and think in terms of the
long-range good.
Or try to.
тАЬWeтАЩre all through here, Julio,тАЭ Conan Lang said. тАЬWe can head for home now.тАЭ
тАЬYes,тАЭ said Julio Medina. тАЬIt has been a long time.тАЭ
The two men sat silently in the darkness, each thinking his own thoughts, watching the yellow moon
sail through silver stars.