• Пожаловаться

Keith Laumer: Greylorn

Здесь есть возможность читать онлайн «Keith Laumer: Greylorn» весь текст электронной книги совершенно бесплатно (целиком полную версию). В некоторых случаях присутствует краткое содержание. год выпуска: 2003, ISBN: 0-7434-3588-5, издательство: Baen, категория: Фантастика и фэнтези / на английском языке. Описание произведения, (предисловие) а так же отзывы посетителей доступны на портале. Библиотека «Либ Кат» — LibCat.ru создана для любителей полистать хорошую книжку и предлагает широкий выбор жанров:

любовные романы фантастика и фэнтези приключения детективы и триллеры эротика документальные научные юмористические анекдоты о бизнесе проза детские сказки о религиии новинки православные старинные про компьютеры программирование на английском домоводство поэзия

Выбрав категорию по душе Вы сможете найти действительно стоящие книги и насладиться погружением в мир воображения, прочувствовать переживания героев или узнать для себя что-то новое, совершить внутреннее открытие. Подробная информация для ознакомления по текущему запросу представлена ниже:

Keith Laumer Greylorn

Greylorn: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

Предлагаем к чтению аннотацию, описание, краткое содержание или предисловие (зависит от того, что написал сам автор книги «Greylorn»). Если вы не нашли необходимую информацию о книге — напишите в комментариях, мы постараемся отыскать её.

Keith Laumer: другие книги автора


Кто написал Greylorn? Узнайте фамилию, как зовут автора книги и список всех его произведений по сериям.

Greylorn — читать онлайн бесплатно полную книгу (весь текст) целиком

Ниже представлен текст книги, разбитый по страницам. Система сохранения места последней прочитанной страницы, позволяет с удобством читать онлайн бесплатно книгу «Greylorn», без необходимости каждый раз заново искать на чём Вы остановились. Поставьте закладку, и сможете в любой момент перейти на страницу, на которой закончили чтение.

Тёмная тема

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

“The patrols brought a couple of cells alongside, and Mannion went out to try to establish contact. Sure enough, he got a very faint transmission, on the same band as before. The cells were talking to each other in their own language. They ignored Mannion even though his transmission must have blanketed everything within several hundred miles. We eventually brought one of them into the cargo lock and started trying different wavelengths on it. Then Kramer had the idea of planting a couple of electrodes and shooting a little juice to it. Of course, it loved the DC, but as soon as we tried AC, it gave up. So we had a long talk with it and found out everything we needed to know.

“It was a four-week run to the nearest outpost planet of the New Terran Federation, and they took me on to New Terra aboard one of their fast liaison vessels. The rest you know. We, the home planet, were as lost to the New Terrans as they were to us. They greeted us as their own ancestors come back to visit them.

“Most of my crew, for personal reasons, were released from duty there, and settled down to stay.

“The clean-up job here on Earth was a minor operation to their Navy. As I recall, the trip back was made in a little over five months, and the Red Tide was killed within four weeks of the day the task force arrived. I don’t think they wasted a motion. One explosive charge per cell, of just sufficient size to disrupt the nucleus. When the critical number of cells had been killed, the rest died overnight.

“It was quite a different Earth that emerged from under the plague, though. You know it had taken over all of the land area except North America and a strip of Western Europe, and all of the sea it wanted. It was particularly concentrated over what had been the jungle areas of South America, Africa, and Asia. You must realize that in the days before the Tide, those areas were almost completely uninhabitable. You have no idea what the term ‘jungle’ really implied. When the Tide died, it disintegrated into its component molecules; and the result was that all those vast jungle lands were now beautifully leveled and completely cleared areas covered with up to twenty feet of the richest topsoil imaginable. That was what made it possible for old Terra to become what she is today; the Federation’s truck farm, and the sole source of those genuine original Terran foods that all the rest of the worlds pay such fabulous prices for.

“Strange how quickly we forget. Few people today remember how we loathed and feared the Tide when we were fighting it. Now it’s dismissed as a blessing in disguise.”

The admiral paused. “Well,” he said, “I think that answers the questions and gives you a bit of homespun philosophy to go with it.”

“Admiral,” said the reporter, “you’ve given the public some facts it’s waited a long time to hear. Coming from you, sir, this is the greatest story that could have come out of this Reunion Day celebration. But there is one question more, if I may ask it. Can you tell me, Admiral, just how it was that you rejected what seemed to be prima facie proof of the story the Mancji told: that they were the lords of creation out there, and that humanity was nothing but a tame food animal to them?”

The admiral sighed. “I guess it’s a good question,” he said. “But there was nothing supernatural about my figuring that one. I didn’t suspect the full truth, of course. It never occurred to me that we were the victims of the now well-known but still inexplicable sense of humor of the Mancji, or that they were nothing but scavengers around the edges of the Federation. The original Omega ship had met them and seen right through them, but for two centuries those fool hives buzzed around the Omega worlds listening and picking up trophies. They’re actually highly intelligent in their own weird way. They picked up the language, listened in on communications, made a real study of Terrans. Every twenty years or so when they got to be too big a nuisance, the New Terrans would break up a few of their hives and clear them out of the area. But on the whole they had a sort of amused tolerance of them.

“Well, when this hive spotted us coming in, they knew enough about New Terra to realize at once that we were strangers, coming from outside the area. It appealed to their sense of humor to have the gall to strut right out in front of us and try to put over a swindle. What a laugh for the oyster kingdom if they could sell Terrans on the idea that they were the master race. It never occurred to them that we might be anything but Terrans; Terrans who didn’t know the Mancji. And they were canny enough to use an old form of Standard.

“Sure enough, we didn’t show any signs of recognizing them; so they decided to really get a kick by getting us to give them what they love better than anything else: a nice bath of electric current. They don’t eat, of course; they live on pure radiation. The physical side of life means little to them. They live in a world of the hive mind; they do love the flow of electricity through the hive, though. It must be something like having your back scratched.

“Then we wanted food. They knew what we ate, and that was where they went too far. They had, among the flotsam in their hive, a few human bodies they had picked up from some wreck they’d come across in their travels. They had them stashed away like everything else they could lay a pseudopod on. So they stacked them the way they’d seen Terran frozen foods shipped in the past, and sent them over. Another of their little jokes.

“I suppose if you’re already overwrought and eager to quit, and you’ve been badly scared by the size of an alien ship, it’s pretty understandable that the sight of human bodies, along with the story that they’re just a convenient food supply, might seem pretty convincing. At least, the prevailing school of thought seemed to be that we were lucky we hadn’t been put in the food lockers ourselves. But I was already pretty dubious about the genuineness of our pals, and when I saw those bodies it was pretty plain that we were hot on the trail of Omega Colony. There was no other place humans could have come from out there. We had to find out the location from the Mancji.”

“But, Admiral,” said the reporter, “true enough they were humans, and presumably had some connection with the colony, but they were naked corpses stacked like cordwood. The Mancji had stated that these were slaves, or rather domesticated animals; they wouldn’t have done you any good.”

“Well, you see, I didn’t believe that,” the admiral said. “Because it was an obvious lie. I tried to show some of the officers, but I’m afraid they weren’t being too rational just them.

“I went into the locker and examined those bodies; if Kramer had looked closely, he would have seen what I did. These were no tame animals. They were civilized men.”

“How could you be sure, Admiral? They had no clothing, no identifying marks, nothing. Why didn’t you believe they were cattle?”

“Because,” said the admiral, “all the men’s beards were neatly trimmed, in a style two hundred years out of date.”

After the admiral had signed the check, nodded and walked away, the reporter keyed his fone for Editor.

“Priority,” he said. “Lead. Here’s how our world was saved twenty years ago by a dead man’s haircut…”

Тёмная тема

Шрифт:

Сбросить

Интервал:

Закладка:

Сделать

Похожие книги на «Greylorn»

Представляем Вашему вниманию похожие книги на «Greylorn» списком для выбора. Мы отобрали схожую по названию и смыслу литературу в надежде предоставить читателям больше вариантов отыскать новые, интересные, ещё не прочитанные произведения.


Keith Laumer: Sur le seuil
Sur le seuil
Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer: Doorstep
Doorstep
Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer: End as a Hero
End as a Hero
Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer: Of Death What Dreams
Of Death What Dreams
Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer: The Star-Sent Knaves
The Star-Sent Knaves
Keith Laumer
Keith Laumer: Thunderhead
Thunderhead
Keith Laumer
Отзывы о книге «Greylorn»

Обсуждение, отзывы о книге «Greylorn» и просто собственные мнения читателей. Оставьте ваши комментарии, напишите, что Вы думаете о произведении, его смысле или главных героях. Укажите что конкретно понравилось, а что нет, и почему Вы так считаете.