"Mack Reynolds - North Africa 02 - Border, Breed or Birth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

The secretary shrugged and turned and left.

Zetterberg, still scowling, resumed his own place behind the desk and
said, "Claud Hansen is a trusted Reunited Nations man. What could
possibly be so secret?"

Homer indicated the orders he held. "This assignment. It takes some
consideration."

Sven Zetterberg was not a patient man. He said, in irritation, "It should
be perfectly clear. This El Hassan we've been hearing so much about. This
mystery man come out of the desert attempting to unify all North Africa.
We want to talk to him."

"Why?" Crawford said.

"Confound it," Zetterberg snapped. "I thought we'd gone into this
yesterday. In spite of the complaints that come into this office in regard to
your cavalier tactics in carrying out your assignments, you and your team
are our most competent operatives. So we've given you the assignment of
finding El Hassan."

"I mean, why do you want to talk to him?"

The Swede glared at him for a moment, as though the American were
being deliberately dense. "Dr. Crawford," he said, "when the African
Development Project was first begun we had high hopes. Seemingly all
Reunited Nations members were being motivated by high humanitarian
reasons. Our task was to bring all Africa to a level of progress comparable
to the advanced nations. It was more than a duty, it was a crying need, a
demand. Africa is and has been throughout history a have-not continent.
While Europe, the Americas, Australia and now even Asia industrialized
and largely conquered man's old socio-economic problems, Africa lagged
behind. The reasons were manifold: colonialism, lingering tribal society тАж
various others. Now that very lagging has become a potentially explosive
situation. With the coming of antibiotics and other breakthroughs in
medicine, the African population is growing with an all but geometric
progression. So fast is it growing, that what advances were being made
did less than keep up the level of per capita gross product. It was bad
enough to have a per capita gross product averaging less than a hundred
dollars a year, but it actually sank below that point."

Homer Crawford was nodding.

Zetterberg continued the basic lecture with which he knew the other
was already completely familiar. "So the Reunited Nations took on the
task of advancing as rapidly as possible the African economy and all the
things that must be done before an economy can be advanced. It was
self-preservation, I suppose. Have-not nations, not to speak of have-not
races and have-not continents, have a tendency eventually to explode upon