"Cordwainer Smith - Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

From beneath Macht's foot there flowed a trickle of blood. The dust drank it up.
"Macht," said I, "are you hurt?"
Virginia turned around, too.
Macht raised his eyebrows at me and said with unconcern, "No. Why?"
"The blood. At your feet."
He glanced down. "Oh, those," he said, "they're nothing. Just the eggs of some kind of an un-bird which does not even fly."
"Stop it!" I shouted telepathically, using the Old Common Tongue. I did not even try to think in our new-learned French.
He stepped back a pace in surprise.
Out of nothing there came to me a message: thankyou thankyou goodgreat gohomeplease thankyou goodgreat goaway manbad manbad manbad . , , Somewhere an animal or bird was warning me against Macht. I thought a casual thanks to it and turned my attention to Macht.
He and I stared at each other. Was this what culture was? Were we now men? Did freedom always include the freedom to mistrust, to fear, to hate?
I liked him not at all. The words of forgotten crimes came into my mind: assassination, murder, abduction, insanity, rape, robbery . . .
We had known none of these things and yet I felt them all.
He spoke evenly to me. We had both been careful to guard our minds against being read telepathically, so that our only means of communi-
cation were empathy and French. "It's your idea," he said, most untruthfully, "or at least your lady's . . ."
"Has lying already come into the world," said I, "so that we walk into the clouds for no reason at all?"
"There is a reason," said Macht.
I pushed Virginia gently aside and capped my mind so tightly that the anti-telepathy felt like a headache.
"Macht," said I, and I myself could hear the snarl of an animal in my own voice, "tell me why you have brought us here or I will kill you."
He did not retreat. He faced me, ready for a fight. He said, "Kill? You mean, to make me dead?" but his words did not carry conviction. Neither one of us knew how to fight, but he readied for defense and I for attack.
Underneath my thought shield an animal thought crept in: good-man good-man take him by the neck no-air he-aaah no-air he-aaah like broken egg . . .
I took the advice without worrying where it came from. It was simple. I walked over to Macht, reached my hands around his throat and squeezed. He tried to push my hands away. Then he tried to kick me. All I did was hang on to his throat. If I had been a lord or a Go-captain, I might have known about fighting. But I did not, and neither did he.
It ended when a sudden weight dragged at my hands.
Out of surprise, I let go.
Macht had become unconscious. Was that dead?
It could not have been, because he sat up. Virginia ran to him. He rubbed his throat and said with a rough voice:
"You should not have done that."
This gave me courage. 'Tell me," I spat at him, "tell me why you wanted us to come, or I will do it again."
Macht grinned weakly. He leaned his head against Virginia's arm. "It's fear," he said. "Fear."
"Fear?" I knew the word-peur-but not the meaning. Was it some kind of disquiet or animal alarm?
I had been thinking with my mind open; he thought back yes.
"But why do you like it?" I asked.
It is delicious, he thought. It makes me sick and thrilly and alive. It is like strong medicine, almost as good as stroon. I went there "before. High up, I had much fear. It was Хwonderful and had and good, all at the same time. I lived a thousand years in a single hour. I wanted more
of it, hut I thought it would he even more exciting -with other people.
"Now I will kill you," said I in French. "You are very-very ..." I had to look for the word. "You are very evil."
"No," said Virginia, "let him talk."
He thought at me, not bothering with words. This is what the lords of the Instrumentality never let us have. Fear. Reality. We were horn in a stupor and we died in a dream. Even the underpeople, the animals^ had more life than we did. The machines did not have fear. That's what we were. Machines who thought they were men. And now we are free.
He saw the edge of raw, red anger in my mind, and he changed the subject. I did not lie to you. This is the way to the Abba-dingo. I have "been there. It works. On this side, it always works.
"It works," cried Virginia. "You see he says so. It works! He is telling the truth. Oh, Paul, do let's go on!"
"All right," said I, "we'll go."
I helped him rise. He looked embarrassed, like a man who has shown something of which he is ashamed.
We walked onto the surface of the indestructible boulevard. It was comfortable to the feet.
At the bottom of my mind the little unseen bird or animal babbled its thoughts at me: goodman goodman make him dead take water take water . . .
I paid no attention as I walked forward with her and him, Virginia between us. I paid no attention.
I wish I had.
We walked for a long time.
The process was new to us. There was something exhilarating in knowing that no one guarded us, that the air was free air, moving without benefit of weather machines. We saw many birds, and when I thought at them I found their minds startled and opaque; they were natural birds, the like of which I had never seen before. Virginia asked me their names, and I outrageously applied all the bird-names which we had learned in French without knowing whether they were historically right or not.
Maximilien Macht cheered up, too, and he even sang us a song, rather off key, to the effect that we would take the high road and he the low one, but that he would be in Scotland before us. It did not make sense, but the lilt was pleasant. Whenever he got a certain distance
ahead of Virginia and me, I made up variations on "Macouba" and sang-whispered the phrases into her pretty ear:
She -wasn't the woman 1 went to seek. 1 met her by the merest chance. She did not speak the French of France, But the surded French of Martinique.
We were happy in adventure and freedom, until we became hungry. Then our troubles began.