"Donald Westlake - SH1 - Don't You Know There's A War On" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westlake Donald E)

Don't You Know There's A War On?


by Donald Westlake

In 1981, I have no idea why, I started a series of oddball science fiction short stories; I mean, every once
in a while those people warped through my brain again, until, by 1988, I'd done 5 of them. Then I
stopped, and again I have no idea why; they'd been fun to write. All 5 were published in Playboy. When
I sent in the first one, Alice Turner, the wonderful fiction editor there - one of the best, recently no longer
there, which is Playboy's loss - said she'd buy the story if I would send her, in a plain wrapper, whatever
I'd been smoking or ingesting while writing it.

Herewith, "Don't You Know There's A War On?" the first of the starship Hopeful stories.




From the beginning of Time, Man has been on the move, ever outward. First he spread over his
own planet, then cross the Solar System, then outward to the Galaxies, all of them dotted,
speckled, measled with the colonies of Man.

Then, one day in the year eleven thousand four hundred and six (11,406), an incredible discovery
was made in the Master Imperial Computer back on Earth. Nearly 500 years before, a clerical
error had erased from the computer's memory more than 1000 colonies, all in Sector F.U.B.A.R.3.

For half a millennium, those colonies, young and struggling when last heard from, had had no
contact with the rest of Humanity. The Galactic Patrol Interstellar Ship Hopeful, Captain
Gregory Standforth commanding, was at once dispatched to reestablish contact with the
Thousand Lost Colonies and return them to the bosom of Mankind.

The two armies were massed in terrible array, banners flying, the hosts facing each other across the
verdant valley. The tents of the generals were magnificently bedecked, pennons whipping in the breeze.
Down below, clergymen in white and black blessed the day and the pounded grass and the generals and
the banners and the archers and the horses and those who sweep up behind the horses. Filled with a
good breakfast, the soldiers on the slopes stood comfortably, happy to be a part of this historic moment,
while the supreme commanders of both forces marched with their aides and their scribes down through
their respective armies and out across the green sweep of neutral territory toward the table and the altar
set up in the very center of the valley under a yellow flag of truce.

This was the first time these two supreme commanders had met, and they studied each other with a
pardonable curiosity while the various aides exchanged documents and provided signatures. Is he
fiercer-looking than me? the supreme commanders wondered as they eyed each other. Is his jaw firmer
and leaner? Do his eyes flash more coldly and cruelly? Is his backbone more ramrod-stiff?

The ministers sprinkled holy water over the papers. The supreme commanders firmly shook hands - very
firmly shook hands - and a great cheer went up from the multitudes on the slopes. The ceremony was
complete. The name had been changed. The 300 Years' War was now officially the 400 Years' War.

"Look out!" someone shouted.
Soldiers gaped. Horses neighed and pawed the ground. Clergy and aides fled with cassocks and tunics