"H. Beam Piper - The Answer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Piper H Beam)

charge of the investigation at Auburn, until we had New York and Washington and Detroit and Mobile
and San Francisco to worry about. Then what had happened to Auburn wasn't important, any more. We
were trying to get evidence to lay before the United Nations. We kept at it for about twelve hours after
the United Nations had ceased to exist."

"I could never understand about that, Lee. I don't know what the truth is; I probably never shall. But I
know that my government did not launch that missile. During the first days after yours began coming in, I
talked to people who had been in the Kremlin at the time. One had been in the presence of Klyzenko
himself when the news of your bombardment arrived. He said that Klyzenko was absolutely stunned. We
always believed that your government decided upon a preventive surprise attack, and picked out a town,
Auburn, New York, that had been hit by one of our first retaliation missiles, and claimed that it had been
hit first."

He shook his head. "Auburn was hit an hour before the first American missile was launched. I know that
to be a fact. We could never understand why you launched just that one, and no more until after ours
began landing on you; why you threw away the advantage of surprise and priority of attackтАФ"

"Because we didn't do it, Lee!" The Russian's voice trembled with earnestness. "You believe me when I
tell you that?"

"Yes, I believe you. After all that happened, and all that you, and I, and the people you worked with, and
the people I worked with, and your government, and mine, have been guilty of, it would be a waste of
breath for either of us to try to lie to the other about what happened fifteen years [Pg 7] ago." He drew
slowly on his pipe. "But who launched it, then? It had to be launched by somebody."

"Don't you think I've been tormenting myself with that question for the last fifteen years?" Pitov
demanded. "You know, there were people inside the Soviet UnionтАФnot many, and they kept themselves
well hiddenтАФwho were dedicated to the overthrow of the Soviet regime. They, or some of them, might
have thought that the devastation of both our countries, and the obliteration of civilization in the Northern
Hemisphere, would be a cheap price to pay for ending the rule of the Communist Party."

"Could they have built an ICBM with a thermonuclear warhead in secret?" he asked. "There were also
fanatical nationalist groups in Europe, both sides of the Iron Curtain, who might have thought our mutual
destruction would be worth the risks involved."
"There was China, and India. If your country and mine wiped each other out, they could go back to the
old ways and the old traditions. Or Japan, or the Moslem States. In the end, they all went down along
with us, but what criminal ever expects to fall?"

"We have too many suspects, and the trail's too cold, Alexis. That rocket wouldn't have had to have
been launched anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. For instance, our friends here in the Argentine
have been doing very well by themselves since El Coloso del Norte went down."

And there were the Australians, picking themselves up bargains in real-estate in the East Indies at
gun-point, and there were the Boers, trekking north again, in tanks instead of ox-wagons. And Brazil,
with a not-too-implausible pretender to the Braganza throne, calling itself the Portuguese Empire and
looking eastward. And, to complete the picture, here were Professor Doctor Lee Richardson and
Comrade Professor Alexis Petrovitch Pitov, getting ready to test a missile with a matter-annihilation
warhead.

No. This thing just wasn't a weapon.