LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

who had seen H-bombs and Bethe-cycle bombs, was impressed. Keegark was completely obliterated under an outward-rolling cloud of smoke and dust that spread out for five miles at the bottom of the towering column.

      There had been a hundred and fifty thousand people in that city, even if their faces were the faces of lizards and they had four arms and quartz-speckled skins. What fraction of them were now alive, he could not guess. He had to remind himself that they were the people who had burned Eric Blount and Hendrik Lemoyne alive; that two of the three bombs that had contributed to that column of boiling smoke had been made in Keegark, by Keegarkans, and that, with a few causal factors altered, he was seeing what would have happened to Konkrook. Perhaps every Terran felt a superstitious dread of nuclear energy turned to the purposes of war; small wonder, after what they had done on their own world.

      For one thing, he thought grimly, the next geek who picks up the idea of soaking a Terran in thermoconcentrate and setting fire to him will drop it again like a hot potato. And the next geek potentate who tries to organize an anti-Terran conspiracy, or the next crazy caravan-driver who preached znidd suddabit, will be lynched on the spot. But this must be the last nuclear bomb used on Uller....

      Drunkard's morning-after resolution! he told himself contemptuously. The next time, it will come easier, and easier still the time after that. After you drop the first bomb, there is no turning back, any more than there had been after Hiroshima, four-hundred-and-fifty-odd years ago. Why, he had even been considering just where, against the mountains back of Bwork, he would drop a demonstration bomb as a prelude to a surrender demand.

      You either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, in time, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together on the same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge. Uller was not ready for membership in the Terran Federation; then its people must bow to the Terran Pax. The Kragans would help—as proconsuls, administrators, now, instead of mercenaries. And there must be manned orbital stations, and the Residencies must be moved outside the cities, away from possible blast-areas. And Sid Harrington's idea of encouraging the natives to own their own contragravity-ships must be shelved, for a long time to come. Maybe, in a century or so....

      Kankad had a good idea, at that, a most meritorious idea. He was sold on it, already, and he doubted if it would take much salesmanship with Paula, either. Already, she was clinging to his arm with obvious possessiveness. Maybe their grandchildren, and the Kankad of that time, would see Uller a civilized member of the Federation....

      They paused, as the gun-cutter nuzzled up to the Procyon and the canvas-entubed gangway was run out and made fast, looking back at the fearful thing that had sprouted from where Keegark had been.

      "You know," Paula was saying, echoing his earlier thought, "but for that female pornographer, that would have been Konkrook."

      He nodded. "Yes. I hope you won't mind, but there will always be a place in my heart for Hildegarde."

      Then they turned their backs upon the abomination of Keegark's desolation and went up the gangway together, looking very little like a general and his adjutant.

      With a broadsword in his hand, von Schlichten fought his way toward the throne. There Firkked waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the other, and a dagger in each lower hand. Von Schlichten fought on, trying not to think of the absurdity of a man of the Sixth Century A.E., the representative of a civilized Chartered Company, dueling to the death with a barbarian king for a throne he had promised to another barbarian ... or of what could happen on Uller if he allowed this four-armed monstrosity to kill him!

      Four-Day Planet

       Table of Contents

by H. Beam Piper

      Dedication

       Table of Contents

      For Betty and Vall, with

       loving remembrance

Table of Contents

       Dedication

       1. The Ship from Terra

       2. Reporter Working

       3. Bottom Level

       4. Main City Level

       5. Meeting Out of Order

       6. Elementary, My Dear Kivelson

       7. Aboard the Javelin

       8. Practice, 50-MM Gun

       9. Monster Killing

       10. Mayday, Mayday

       11. Darkness and Cold

       12. Castaways Working

       13. The Beacon Light

       14. The Rescue

       15. Vigilantes

       16. Civil War Postponed

       17. Tallow-Wax Fire

       18. The Treason of Bish Ware

       19. Masks Off

       20. Finale

      1.

       The Ship from Terra

       Table of Contents

      I went through the gateway, towing my equipment in a contragravity hamper over my head. As usual, I was wondering what it would take, short of a revolution, to get the city of Port Sandor as clean and tidy and well lighted as the spaceport area. I knew Dad's editorials and my sarcastic news stories wouldn't do it. We'd been trying long enough.

      The two girls in bikinis in front of me pushed on, still gabbling about the fight one of them had had with her boy friend, and I closed up behind the half dozen monster-hunters in long trousers, ankle boots and short boat-jackets, with big knives on their belts. They must

Скачать книгу