"Mack Reynolds - Code Duello" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Ross Metaxa closed his eyes in pain.

When he opened them again, it was to stare at Lee Chang. "Look," he
said. "I assume you're not trying deliberately to sabotage Section G. You've
been dedicated too long for that. But when I gave you the job of recruiting
new agents, I didn't expect you to wind up with a bevy of pickpockets,
shovel throwers andтАж and lucky coin flippers. All this is out of the
question, understand? We'll go back to our old system."

Lee Chang was shaking her head. "We haven't the time, Commissioner
Metaxa. And you know it. We need new agents, fast. We haven't the time
to seek out the young men from all over United Planets who are potential
Section G operatives, and we haven't got five years for training them. In
the past year, this department has had more work than we had in the last
ten."

"Do you think I am unfamiliar with that!"

She said, persuasively, "The need to push, prod, pry the member worlds
of United Planets into progress is more pressing than ever. And nine out of
ten of them resentтАФor would if they knew what we were about тАФsuch
pressures on our part Man will cling, suicidally, to such institutions as
religion, political systems, socioeconomic systems, racial beliefs, no matter
how much they may be standing in the way of progress. In trying to
change such institutions, we've lost a score of experienced agents in the
past few months."

His eyes hadn't lost their anger. "You think you know this any better
than I do? But I need agents, not freaks."
 "You need people who will bring results, Commissioner. I am combing
United Planets to locate them. People with special talents who also have
man's dream." She pursed her small mouth in a moue of defiance.

Ross Metaxa pointed over at Jerry Rhodes, who had resumed his
miserable attempts to jerk a heavy Model H gun from the holster he had
under his left arm.

"What good would that clod do, if he came up against one of the
strong-arm bully-boys on the planet Goshen? He'd be crisped before he
could get his shooter out. And by the way he handles it, even if he did get
it out, he'd probably shoot off his own foot."

"Not with his luck," Sid Jakes said.

Metaxa scoffed. "I suppose you think he could gamble a Goshen
pistolero's shooter away from him by matching coins."

Lee Chang said, "We have already had one of our special talents troupes
succeed on an assignment. I suggest you give another group a job and see