Citizen in Spase. Stories / Гражданин в Космосе. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“We’re taking down a mountain,” Lerner said.

“Good!” Dengue cried, sitting upright. “That big one? Excellent.” He leaned back and stared dreamily at the ceiling. “That mountain was standing while Man was grubbing in the dirt for insects and scavenging what the saber-tooth left behind. Lord, it’s even older than that!” Dengue laughed happily and sipped his drink. “That mountain overlooked the sea when Man – I refer to our noble species homo sapiens – was a jellyfish, trying to make up its mind between land and sea.

“All right,” Morrison said, “that’s enough.”

Dengue looked at him shrewdly. “But I’m proud of you, Morrison, I’m proud of all of us. We’ve come a long way since the jellyfish days. What nature took a million years to erect we can tear down in a single day. We can pull that dinky mountain apart and replace it with a concrete and steel city guaranteed to last a century!”

“Shut up,” Morrison said, walking forward, his face glowing.

Dengue finished his drink and intoned sonorously, “Stand aside, Mother Nature! Tremble, ye deep-rooted rocks and hills, murmur with fear, ye immemorial ocean sea, down to your blackest depths where monsters unholy glide in eternal silence! For Great Morrison has come to drain the sea and make of it a placid pond, to level the hills and build upon them twelve-lane super highways, complete with restrooms for trees, picnic tables for shrubs, diners for rocks, gas stations for caves, billboards for mountain streams, and other fanciful substitutions of the demigod Man.

Morrison arose abruptly and walked out, followed by Lerner. He felt that it would almost be worthwhile to beat Dengue’s face in and give up the whole crummy job. But he wouldn’t do it because that was what Dengue wanted, what he was hired to accomplish.

And, Morrison asked himself, would he be so upset if there weren’t a germ of truth in what Dengue said?

“Those natives are waiting,” Lerner said, catching up with him.

“I don’t want to see them now,” Morrison said. But distantly, from a far rise of hills, he could hear their drums and whistles. Another irritation for his poor men. “All right,” he said.

Three natives were standing at the North Gate beside the camp interpreter. They were of human-related stock, scrawny, naked stone-age savages.