"Theodore Sturgeon - Microcosmic God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

type power plant, for instance, that would operate without a flywheel, and a bright
young Neoteric used any of the materials for architectural purposes, half the tribe
immediately died. Of course, they had developed a written language; it was Kid-
derтАЩs own. The teletype in a glass-enclosed area in a corner of each section was a
shrine. Any directions that were given on it were obeyed, or else. . . . After this
innovation, KidderтАЩs work was much simpler. There was no need for any
indirection. Anything he wanted done was done. No matter how impossible his
commands, three or four gen-erations of Neoterics could find a way to carry them
out.
This quotation is from a paper that one of KidderтАЩs highspeed telescopic cameras

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 MICROCOSMIC GOD


discovered being circulated among the younger Neoterics. It is translated from the
highly simplified script of the Neoterics.
тАЬThese edicts shall be followed by each Neoteric upon pain of death, which
punishment will be inflicted by the tribe upon the individual to protect the tribe
against him.
Priority of interest and tribal and individual effort is to be given the commands
that appear on the word machine.
тАЬAny misdirection of material or power, or use thereof for any other purpose than
the carrying out of the ma-chineтАЩs commands, unless no command appears, shall
be punishable by death.
тАЬAny information regarding the problem at hand, or ideas or experiments which
might conceivably bear upon it, are to become the property of the tribe.
тАЬAny individual failing to cooperate in the tribal effort, or who can be termed
guilty of not expending his full efforts in the work, or the suspicion thereof shall
be subject to the death penalty.тАЭ
Such are the results of complete domination. This paper impressed Kidder as
much as it did because it was com-pletely spontaneous. It was the NeotericsтАЩ own
creed, de-veloped by them for their own greatest good.
And so at last Kidder had his fulfillment. Crouched in the upper room, going from
telescope to telescope, running off slowed-down films from his high speed
cameras, he found himself possessed of a tractable, dynamic source of
information. Housed in the great square building with its four half-acre sections
was a new, world, to which he was god.

ConantтАЩs mind was similar to KidderтАЩs in that its approach to any problem was
along the shortest distance between any two points, regardless of whether that ap-
proach was along the line of most or least resistance. His rise to the bank
presidency was a history of ruthless moves whose only justification was that they
got him what he wanted. Like an over-efficient general, he would never vanquish
an enemy through sheer force of numbers alone. He would also skillfully flank his
enemy, not on one side, but on both. Innocent bystanders were creatures deserving
no consideration.
The time he took over a certain thousand-acre property, for instance, from a man
named Grady, he was not satis-fied with only the title to the land. Grady was an