"Eric Frank Russel - The Great Explosion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Eric Frank)

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"My bike," said Harrison, evenly. "I brought it with me. I always bring my bike
with me."

The first planet showed up like a pink ball on the visiscreens but the effect was a
fluorescent distortion; as seen with the naked eye its real color was gray-green.
Fourth of a family of nine planets, it circled a Sol-type sun and the whole system
lay in a sort of cosmic gap with no near neighbors.

In the chartroom Captain Grayder said to the Ambassador, "According to ancient
records this world is the only inhabitable one in the bunch. About a million people
were dumped upon it before communication ceased."

"They'll get an awful shock when they find that Terra has caught up with them
again," opined the Ambassador. "Which crowd of crackpots picked this place?"

"This," informed Grayder, "is the only world not chosen by its original settlers."

"Not chosen? What d'you mean?"

"They were sent here whether they liked it or not. They were criminals. If any
fellow's room was preferred to his company Terra got rid of him by deporting him
to where he could share his way of We with his own kind. Let dog eat dog, they
said."

"Now that you come to mention it I recall reading something about it when at
college," said the Ambassador. "I remember that the history books treated it as an
interesting experiment that should solve once and for all the question of whether
criminal traits are hereditary or environmental."

"That is why I've been ordered to come here first. Some of our theorists want to
know the answer." Grayder looked thoughtful. "Maybe Terra has another army of
no-good bums ready for shipment."

"If so, it's taken long enough to collect them. Four hundred years."

"After a complete clean-up," Grayder pointed out, "it might require several

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generations for the criminal strain to reappear."

"If it is hereditary," agreed the Ambassador. "But if it is environmental the clean-
up should have had little or no effect."