Frederik Pohl
Slave Ship (1957)
Publicada pela primeira vez na revista Galaxy em 1956 e editada em livro no ano seguinte, Slave Ship está entre as primeiras obras escritas por Frederik Pohl em nome próprio.
Tendo por fundo um ambiente de guerra mundial não declarada contra os Caodais, um movimento religioso pós-islâmico que domina territorialmente a Ásia e a África (a Europa ficou em escombros), as escaramuças dão-se, naquele momento, fora dos territórios continentais. Logan Miller, tenente da Marinha norte-americana, especialista em computadores, é transferido para uma quinta agrícola no âmbito do Projecto Mako, envolvido em grande secretismo. Aí é feito o estudo da linguagem de diversos animais, com o objectivo de comunicar com eles para, posteriormente, integrá-los em operações militares. Entretanto sucede-se uma série de estranhas mortes, atribuídas a uma arma secreta dos Caodais, e o próprio Logan Miller escapa, por pouco, a um atentado.
É decidido um ataque a uma base caodai em Madagáscar, e o Projecto Mako envolver-se-á na primeira vaga do ataque, atravessando o Atlântico num submarino, rumo ao alvo. Mas, no Índico, as coisas não correm como planeado, e apenas os elementos do Mako conseguem aproximar-se do objectivo estabelecido, rumo a um desfecho algo imaginativo e inesperado que proporciona o fim da guerra.
The Passion Pit wasn't anything like a pit, really; it was on the beach, looking out over the ocean; it was only the size of it and the way the crowd acted on a busy night that gave it its name. I suppose seventy-five people could have fitted into it comfortably. On a dull Monday it usually held a hundred. The tables were more than merely close, they almost touched each other, and where you fitted in your chairs was your own problem.
Semyon nudged me and pointed. He had a thunderhead scowl, and I saw why. Over against the wall, decorously eating in the midst of the uproar, ignoring the band blaring in their ears and the chorus line kicking past their noses, sat Commander Lineback and a dowdy middle-aged WAVE j.g. "Even here he follows us!" hissed Semyon.
"Don't mind him," I said. "Who's the woman?"
Semyon pursed his lips. "You have never met the officer, his wife? A very charming lady—almost as charming as this who comes now!" He swiveled his chair around, eyes gleaming, completely forgetting about the commander and his lady. The feature stripper of the evening was making her appearance. She was new, but I had heard of her. She was actually a commissioned officer, which meant talent a good cut above the usual level of the Passion Pit, most of whose entertainers were lucky to hope to make CPO. I flagged a waiter and ordered beer—the best you could do in the Pit—and sat back to enjoy myself.
But it was not to be. The three-piece "orchestra" had just begun the slow, deep-beat number that the stripper worked to when fireworks began going off outside. Sirens blared and search beams lashed the sky, and shots and signal rockets and more commotion than New Year's Eve in a madhouse. Semyon said something startled and violent in Russian, and we craned our necks to see out the window.
Something was going on down at the beach, but we could not see precisely what. "Let us go look," Semyon proposed gleefully. "Perhaps they have caught a pacifist."
"Pacifist. But I just ordered a beer, and the show—"
"Logan, there is no show," he said severely. He was right; the stripper was standing at the window, staring out; the musicians were right behind her. It was more exciting outside the Passion Pit than in, at that. Half the population of the town seemed to be beating the waterfront. "Let us look!"
He wasn't the only one with that idea. We joined the throng beating its way down to the scene of the excitement. It was a fine, warm night, smelling of hibiscus and decaying palms, not fitting for so much turmoil. "Pacifist, pacifist!" Semyon was bawling; and whether he was the first to have the idea or not I cannot say, but in a moment it seemed that the whole town was screaming, "Lynch the dirty pacifists! String 'em up!"
Li anteriormente:
O Mundo de Midas (1983)
Os Anais dos Heechee (1987)
Encontro com os Heechee (1984)
