Odnośniki
- Index
- Cabot Meg Pamiętnik Księżniczki 06 Księżniczka uczy się rządzić
- Alan Burt Akers [Dray Prescot 06] Manhounds of Antares (pdf)
- Laurie King Mary Russel 06 Justice Hall (v1.0) [lit]
- Gregory Philippa Powieści Tudorowskie 06 Uwięziona królowa
- Delaney Joseph Kroniki Wardstone 06 Starcie DemonĂłw
- Iain Banks Culture 06 Inversions
- Smith Lisa Jane Obca potęga [tłum. nieoficjalne]
- Crissy Smith Magical Menage (pdf)
- Coulter Catherine FBI Godzina smierci
- Wasilewska Katarzyna ZazdrośÂ›nica
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- conblanca.keep.pl
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
of the
Onlonian's dark deeds was legion.
There was the affair of the Prime Minister of DeSilva III, who at a
cabinet meeting
shot and killed his sovereign and eleven chiefs of state before committing
suicide. The
president* of Viridon; who, at his press conference, ran amuck with a scimitar
snatched
from a wall, hewed unsuspecting reporters to gory bits until overpowered, and
then
swallowed poison.
A variant of the theme, but still plainly Kandron's doing, was the
interesting
episode in which a Tellurian tycoon named Edmundson, while upon an ocean
voyage,
threw fifteen women passengers overboard, then leaped after them dressed only
in a
life-jacket stuffed with lead. Another out of the same whimsical mold was that
of Dillway,
the highly respected operations chief of Central Spaceways. That potentate
called his
secretaries one by one into his 60th floor office and unconcernedly tossed
them, one by
one, out of the window. He danced a jig on the coping before diving after them
to the
street.
A particularly juicy and entertaining bit, Nadreck thought, was the case
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of Narkor
Base Hospital, in which four of the planet's most eminent surgeons decapitated
every
other person in the placeùpatients, nurses, orderlies, and all, with a fine
disregard of
age, sex, or conditionùarranged the severed heads, each upright and each
facing due
north, upon the tiled floor to spell the word "Revenge", and then hacked each
other to
death with scalpels.
These, and a thousand or more other events of similar technique, Nadreck
tabulated and 'subjected to statistical analysis. Scattered so widely
throughout such a
vast volume of space, they had created little or no general disturbance;
indeed, they
had scarcely been noticed by Civilization as a whole. Collected, they made a
truly
staggering, a revolting and appalling total. Nadreck, however, was inherently
incapable
of being staggered, revolted, or appalled. That repulsive summation, a thing
which in its
massed horror would have shaken to .the core any being possessing any shred of
sympathy or tenderness, was to Nadreck an interesting and not too difficult
problem in
psychology and mathematics.
He placed each episode in space and in time, correlating each with all of
its
fellows in a space-time matrix. He determined the locus of centers and derived
the
equations of its most probable motion. He extended it by extrapolation in
accordance
with that equation. Then, assuring himself that his margin of error was as
small as he
could make it, he set out for a planet which Kandron would most probably visit
at a time
far enough in the future to enable him to prepare to receive the Onlonian.
That planet, being inhabited by near-human beings, was warm, brightly
sun-lit,
and had an atmosphere rich in oxygen. Nadreck detested it, since his ideal of
a planet
was precisely the opposite. Fortunately, however, he would not have to land
upon it until
after Kandron's arrivalùpossibly not thenùand the fact that his proposed
quarry was,
like himself, a frigid-blooded poison-breather, made the task of detection a
simple one.
Nadreck set his indetectable speedster into a circular orbit around the
planet, far
enough out to be comfortable, and sent out course after course of delicate,
extremely
sensitive screen. Precision of pattern-analysis was of course needless. The
probability
was that all legitimate movement of personnel to and from the planet would be
composed of warm-blooded oxygen-breathers; that any visitor not so classified
would
be Kandron. Any frigid-blooded visitor had at least to be investigated, hence
his
analytical screens had to be capable only of differentiation between two types
of beings
as far apart as the galactic poles in practically every respect. Nadreck knew
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that no
supervision would be necessary to perform such an open-and-shut separation as
that;
he would have nothing more to do until his electronic announcers should warn
him of
Kandron's approachùor until the passage of time should inform him that the
Onlonian
was not coming to this particular planet.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]