[shano]

Оригинал взят у в The Day of the Triffids

Как ни жаль, перевод С.Бережкова местами оставляет желать переперевода - или же современной, неподнадзорной цензуре редактуры. Потому что:

At least the United States Government took the suggestion seriously enough to deny emphatically that it controlled any satellites designed to conduct biological warfare directly upon human beings. One or two minor nations, whom no one suspected of controlling any satellites at all, hastened to make similar declarations. Other, and major, powers did not, In the face of this ominous reticence, the public began demanding to know why the United States had neglected to prepare for a form of warfare which others were ready to use-and just what did "directly" mean. At this point all parties tacitly gave up denying or confirming anything about satellites, and an intensified effort was made to divert the public interest to the no less important, but far less acrimonious, matter of food scarcity.

The laws of supply and demand should have enabled the more enterprising to organize commodity monopolies, but the world at large had become antagonistic to declared monopolies. The interlaced-company system, however, really worked very smoothly without anything so imputable as Articles of Federation. The general public heard scarcely anything of such little difficulties within the pattern as had to he unsnarled from time to time.

в переводе превратилось примерно в:

В конце концов страны заключили между собой молчаливое соглашение ничего не отрицать и не подтверждать относительно боевых спутников, и постепенно общественное мнение переключилось на не менее важную, но менее острую проблему нехватки продовольствия.

Почему - я понимаю и даже не сомневаюсь в том, что в оригинале перевода (кхм) все было. Но, но, но.

Дальше еще интереснее. Очень может быть, что АБС попросту сочинили часть второй главы (другой вариант - какая-то иная редактура Уиндема), потому что диалога Умберто Кристофоро Палангеца с директором-управляющим и всех рассуждений вплоть до слов "и больше его нигде не видели" в моем англотексте нет. Там сказано только:

Alarmed at the effect this potent oil would have on their trade, Arctic & European summoned Umberto and questioned him at length. He was not communicative. He told them that the oil came from Russia (which still hid behind a curtain of suspicion and secrecy) and that for an enormous sum of money he would endeavor to fly out the seeds. Terms were agreed on, and then Umberto vanished.

И только "снаряды русских истребителей" каким-то чудом в тексте остались, хотя то, что "самолеты, пустившиеся за ним в погоню", были русскими (he found himself attacked by Russian planes), не упоминается.