"E. E. Doc Smith - Lensman 3 - Galactic Patrol" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

Alsakan is just about as far away from here as a planet can be and still lie
within the
galaxy.
"We also know that you are all immune to the lure of noxious drugs. If you
were
not, you would not be here today. So smoke up and break up -- ask any questions
you
care to, and I will try to answer them. Nothing is barred now
this room is shielded against any spy-ray or communicator beam operable
upon
any known frequency."
There war a brief and rather uncomfortable silence, then Kinnison
suggested,
diffidently.
"Might it not be best, sir, to tell us all about it, from the ground up? I
imagine that
most of us are in too much of a daze to ask intelligent questions."
"Perhaps. While some of you undoubtedly have your suspicions, I will begin
by
telling you what is behind what you have been put through during the last five,
yearn.
Feel perfectly free to break in with questions at any time. You know that every
year one
million eighteen-year-old boys of Earth are chosen as cadets by competitive
examinations. You know that during the first year, before any of them see
Wentworth
Hall, that number shrinks to less than fifty thousand. You know that by
Graduation Day
there are only approximately one hundred left in the class. Now I am allowed to
tell you
that you graduates are those who have come with flying colors through the most
brutally rigid, the moat fiendishly thorough process of elimination that it has
been
possible to develop.
"Every than who can be made to reveal any real weakness is dropped. Most of
these are dismissed from the Patrol. There are many splendid men, however, who,
for
some reason not involving moral turpitude, are not quite what a Lensman must be.
These men make up our organization, from grease-monkeys up to the highest
commissioned officers below the rank of Lensman. This explains what you already
know -- that the Galactic Patrol is the finest body of intelligent beings yet to
serve under
one banner.
"Of the million who started, you few are left. As must every being who has
ever
worn or who ever will wear the Lens, each of you has proven repeatedly, to the
cold
verge of death itself, that he is in every respect worthy to wear it. For
instance, Kinnison
here once had a highly adventurous interview with a lady of Aldebaran II and her