"Christopher Stasheff - Rogue Wizard 02 - Wizard in Mind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stasheff Christopher)

file:///F|/rah/Christopher%20Stasheff/Christopher.Stasheff_[Rogue.Wizard.1]_A.Wizard.in.Mind.txt

A Wizard In MindA Wizard In Mind
The First Chronicle of Magnus D'Armand, Rogue Wizard
By Christopher Stasheff
ISBN: 0-812-53648-7


PROLOGUE
A spy can't quit and stay healthy-everybody knows that. In fact, a spy can't
quit and stay alive-but Magnus d'Armand was still living, even though he had
resigned from the Society for the Conversion of Extraterrestrial Nascent
Totalitarianisms more than six months before-still alive, and not really
terribly worried about it.
Of course, SCENT wasn't a secret service with missions of mayhem-it was
(officially) a private organization dedicated to subverting dictatorships before
they started, by converting planets to democracy before they developed out of
their Middle Ages. So Magnus wasn't really a spy, though he was a secret agent.
He was also a secret wizard. That helped, sometimes. A lot.
At the moment, he was sitting in the control room of his spaceship, talking with
its robot brain. "Well, Herkimer, which planet shall we subvert next?"
"There is a wide choice." Herkimer supplied the sound of index cards flipping
behind his rather theatrical sigh. "I do not suppose I could persuade you to
consider a planet for which democracy is obviously the ideal form of
government?"
"You could persuade me to try the planet, but not the democracy-at least, not
without a massive amount of proof. After all, that's why I quit SCENT-because I
wasn't willing to impose democracy on a society it wasn't right for."
"And because you disapproved of some of SCENT's methods-yes, I know." Herkimer
didn't mention the other reason for Magnus's reluctance to "impose"
democracy-the young man's father, Rod Gallowglass, who was one of SCENT's most
famous agents (though Rod himself didn't know about it), and had spend most of
his life laying the foundations of democratic government on Magnus's home
planet, Gramarye. The young man's need to separate himself from his father, and
to establish his own reputation, no doubt had a great deal to do with both his
quitting SCENT and his reluctance to establish democracies.
"I can't accept sacrificing good people just to give an edge to your favorite
form of government," Magnus told him. "Societies come in a great number of
different forms, Herkimer, so it only makes sense that they need different forms
of government. If I find a planet that requires a dictatorship, I'll work to
establish a dictatorship!"
"Certainly, Magnus-if you do find such a society." Herkimer had already scanned
his complete SCENT database, along with the d'Armand family archives that he had
down-loaded from Fess, the family robot. With that knowledge in his data banks,
Herkimer could easily see that although dictatorship might be good for a
society, it wasn't good for the people, unless there were some way of
guaranteeing their civil rights-in which case, it wasn't a complete dictatorship
anymore, but was on the way to becoming something else. "The planet Kanark might
be the sort you are considering." He put a picture on the screen.
Magnus frowned, studying the peasants in their felt caps and faded blue tunics