"James White - Federation World" - читать интересную книгу автора (White James)

Federation World
James White



To Walter Willis

whose example some forty years ago,
and on many occasions since,
made a young fan artist realize
that words can say more than pictures

in Appreciation

A Del Rey Book

Published by Ballantine Books

Copyright ┬й 1988 by James White

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House,
Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Toronto.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 87-91847

ISBN 0-345-35263-7

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: June 1988

Cover Art by David B. Matttngly

Chapter 1

THE building was a white cube twenty stories high with a broad flight of white stairs
leading up to the quietly impressive entrance on the second floor. From past experience
Martin knew that the stairs retained their perfect whiteness no matter how many hundreds of
people climbed them and that the sign above the entrance, which read FEDERATION OF
GALACTIC SENTIENTS EXAMINATION AND INDUCTION CENTER, projected the same
message regardless of the language or degree of literacy of the person viewing it.

He had not had the opportunity of speaking to a blind candidate for Galactic citizenship,
but presumably he or she would have received the message in some other fashion.
 As he began to climb, Martin saw that there were just three other people on the stairs-a
young couple, working students judging by their age and dress, and an old man who was
obviously much too frail to work. The oldster's face had the anxious, stubborn look of one
whose life on Earth had become untenable for a variety of reasons which forced him to try