Non-Stop (Brian W. Aldiss) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги (ч. 4)

A community which cannot or will not realise how insignificant a part of the universe it occupies is not truly civilised. That is to say, it contains a fatal ingredient which renders it, to whatever extent, unbalanced. This is the story of one such community.

An idea, which is man-conceived, unlike most of the myriad effects which comprise our universe, is seldom perfectly balanced. Inevitably, it bears the imprint of man’s own frailty; it may fluctuate from the meagre to the grandiose. This is the story of a grandiose idea.

To the community it was more than an idea: it became existence itself. For the idea, as ideas will, had gone wrong and gobbled up their real lives.