"Cordwainer Smith - Under Old Earth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Cordwainer)

"Look," screamed Sun-boy, holding the congohelium high. "Look!" The Lord Sto Odin did not need to look. He knew full well that the first few tons of water, mud-laden and heavy, had come frothing down the corridor and into their rooms.
"But what do I do?" screamed the voice of Sun-boy. Sto Odin felt that it was not Sun-boy speaking, but some relay speaking from the power of the Douglas-Ouyang planets. A power which had tried to find friendship with man, but had found the wrong man and the wrong friendship.
Sun-boy took control of himself. His feet splashed in the water as he danced. The colors shone on the water as it rose. Ritiplin, tiplin! said the big drum. Kid-nork, kid-nork, said the little drum. Boom, boom, doom, doom, room, said the congohelium.
The Lord Sto Odin felt his old eyes blur but he could still see the blazing image of the wild dancer.
"This is a good way to die," thought he, as he died.
10
Far above, on the surface of the planet, Santuna felt the continent itself heave beneath her feet and saw the eastern horizon grow dark as a volcano of muddy steam shot up from the calm blue sunlit ocean,
"This must not, must not happen again!" she said, thinking of Sun-boy and the congohelium and the death of the Lord Sto Odin.
"Something must be done about it," she added to herself.
And she did it.
In later centuries she brought disease, risk and misery back to increase the happiness of man. She was one of the principal architects of the Rediscovery of Man, and at her most famous she was known as the Lady Alice More.