"William Tenn - Down Among the Dead Men" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tenn William)

were sitting around griping, as men will in any barracks on any planet, whether they look like heroes or
no. But their gripes concerned humiliations deeper than any soldiers had hitherto knownтАФhumiliations as
basic as the fabric of human personality.
"You believe, then," and despite the sweat on my face, my voice was gentle, "that the reproductive
power was deliberately withheld?"
Weinstein scowled. "Now, Commander. Please. No bedtime stories."
"Doesn't it occur to you at all that the whole problem of our species at the mo-ment is reproduction?
Believe me, men, that's all you hear about on the outside. Grammar-school debating teams kick current
reproductive issues back and forth in the district medal competitions; every month scholars in
archaeology and the botany of fungi come out with books about it from their own special angle. Everyone
knows that if we don't lick the reproduction problem, the Eoti are going to lick us. Do you seriously think
under such circumstances, the reproductive powers of anyone would be intentionally impaired?"
"What do a few male blobs matter, more or less?" Grey demanded. "According to the latest news
bulletins, sperm bank deposits are at their highest point in five years. They don't need us."
"Commander," Wang Hsi pointed his triangular chin at me. "Let me ask you a few questions in your
turn. Do you honestly expect us to believe that a science capable of reconstructing a living, highly
effective human body with a complex digestive sys-tem and a most delicate nervous system, all this out of
dead and decaying bits of protoplasm, is incapable of reconstructing the germ plasm in one single, solitary
case?"
"You have to believe it," I told him. "Because it's so."
Wang sat back, and so did the other three. They stopped looking at me.
"Haven't you ever heard it said," I pleaded with them, "that the germ plasm is more essentially the
individual than any other part of him? That some whimsical biolo-gists take the attitude that our human
bodies and all bodies are merely vehicles, or hosts, by means of which our germ plasm reproduces itself?
It's the most complex biotechnical riddle we have! Believe me, men," I added passionately, "when I say
that biology has not yet solved the germ-plasm problem, I'm telling the truth. I know."
That got them.
"Look," I said. "We have one thing in common with the Eoti whom we're fighting. Insects and
warm-blooded animals differ prodigiously. But only among the com-munity-building insects and the
community-building men are there individuals who, while taking no part personally in the reproductive
chain, are of fundamental importance to their species. For example, you might have a female nursery
school teacher who is barren but who is of unquestionable value in shaping the personali-ties and even
physiques of children in her care."
"Fourth Orientation Lecture for Soldier Surrogates," Weinstein said in a dry voice. "He got it right
out of the book."
"I've been wounded," I said, "I've been seriously wounded fifteen times." I stood before them and
began rolling up my right sleeve. It was soaked with my perspiration.
"We can tell you've been wounded, Commander," Lamehd pointed out uncer-tainly. "We can tell
from your medals. You don't have toтАФ"
"And every time I was wounded, they repaired me good as new. Better. Look at that arm." I flexed
it for them. "Before it was burned off in a small razzle six years ago, I could never build up a muscle that
big. It's a better arm they built on the stump, and, believe me, my reflexes never had it so good."
"What did you mean," Wang Hsi started to ask me, "when you said beforeтАФ"
"Fifteen times I was wounded," my voice drowned him out, "and fourteen times the wound was
repaired. The fifteenth timeтАФThe fifteenth timeтАФWell, the fifteenth time it wasn't a wound they could
repair. They couldn't help me one little bit the fifteenth time."
Roger Grey opened his mouth,
"Fortunately," I whispered, "it wasn't a wound that showed."
Weinstein started to ask me something, decided against it and sat back. But I told him what he
wanted to know.