"Bernard Wolfe - Limbo '90" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Bernard)

to destroy the radio and video. 'I wish', he said, 'I'd kept the short-wave radio from my plane.'

'You are good with machines,' Ubu suggested. 'Perhaps you could build such a radio.'

Martine laughed again, shaking his head. 'It's a little late for that,' he said. He reached out and squeezed
Ubu's arm affectionately. 'That's the trouble with you, dear Ubu, with all the Mandunji - you've become
such congenital pacifists that when a threat finally does show up, your minds just go blank. One
pugnacious bum with a slingshot could take over the village and dispose of the lot of you.'

It was perfectly true: six hundred years of dogged good will had left these people without any will at all,
you just had to say boo and they all but fell to the ground in a hebephrenic huddle. The village had been
in a state of frozen panic for weeks, Ubu hadn't been able to sleep, his whole metabolism was on the
blink.

'Do not make fun,' Ubu said. 'I have a great worry.'

'Calm yourself, old man. There is nothing to be done.'
'I have a worry not only for the village. Since these queerlimbs came, I have stayed awake many nights
thinking - he will go, the doctor will go.'

'Suppose that happened?' Martine said. 'Would it be such a calamity?'

'You must not leave us.'

'Nonsense.' Martine took Ubu's arm and steered him over to the row of cubicles which housed the
convalescents. 'These Mandungabas', he said, 'used to be pretty scrappy characters. They spent a lot of
time in hiding, making themselves spears and bolos and stilettos and poison darts that are forbidden by
village law. They refused their doses of rotabunga and smoked ganja and went into trances and raided
their neighbours' yam gardens at night. They made effigies of their mothers-in-law and other people they
didn't like and stuck pins in them, a form of magic which is strictly taboo. They had a terrible thirst to be
different from the others, to stand out, to be raised above the mass, while our normal citizens are so leery
of distinguishing themselves in any way they have to be browbeaten into taking any kind of office,
including your own. They poured so much aggressive energy into their sexuality that their mates were
often seriously maimed and disfigured, sometimes even killed. All in all, a pretty edgy, stand-offish, and
bloodthirsty lot. Well, it certainly looks as though they've become very meek and mild citizens - except
for the ones who have relapses or develop other infirmities, you and the elders don't like to think about
them. So I guess you'd say they're improved.'

'Prognosis good,' Ubu said happily. 'Is.'

'From the point of view of the village, sure. But how does it look from the point of view of the man?
Prognosis one big yawn.'

'A man', Ubu said, 'is well to the extent that his village is well.'

'A moot point. Come on in here for a minute.' He led the way into one of the cubicles. There was no one
on the pallet. 'This is Notoa's room,' he explained. 'Before he was assigned for Mandunga, you
remember, he gave his wife quite a thrashing - her eyes were black for days after. But he seemed to love
his wife as passionately as he hated her, made love to her much more often and for much longer periods
of time than our more normal men do with their wives. Well, Notoa doesn't want to beat his wife any