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Robert A. Heinlein - A Comedy Of Justice
Atec Февраль 27 2008 02:52:13
Книга только для ознакомления
. It's Hobson's choice again, you knothead; you must stay aboard and wait for Graham to show up. He won't, but there might be a wireless message or something. Bite your nails until the ship sails. When it does, thank God for a trip home to God's country. While Graham does the same for his ticket home in the Admiral Moffett. I wonder how he liked being named Hergensheimer? Better than I like 'Graham' I'll bet. A proud name, Hergensheimer.
I got up, ducked around to the far side, and went up two decks to the library, found it unoccupied save for a woman, working on a crossword puzzle. Neither of us wanted to be disturbed, which made us good company. Most of the bookcases were locked, the librarian not being present, but there was a battered encyclopedia - just what I needed as a start.
Two hours later I was startled by a blast indicating that we had a line to the dock; we had arrived. I was loaded with strange history and stranger ideas and none of it digested. To start with, in this world William Jennings Bryan was never president; in I896 McKinley had been elected in his place, had served two terms and had been followed by someone named Roosevelt.
I recognised none of the twentieth-century presidents.
Instead of more than a century of peace under our traditional neutrality, the United States had repeatedly been involved in foreign wars: I899, I9I2-I7, I932 (With Japan!), I950-52, I980-84, and so on right up to the current year - or current when this encyclopedia was published; King's Skald did not report a war now going on
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