"Allen, Roger MacBride - Chronicles of Solace 3 - Shores of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

УNot yet.Ф

УYou should. She wasnТt pulling any punches. ItТll be worth hearing what she has to say.Ф

УWell, maybe,Ф said Yuri. He made an adjustment to one of the projection controls and thought for a moment. He couldnТt sulk in his quarters foreverЧand if his whole life revolved around avoiding DeSilvo, then he had more or less surrendered control of his lifeto DeSilvo. Why should he do that? УMaybe I will be there.Ф

УGood,Ф said Norla. She was checking her setting, getting ready for the next simulation run. УBut thereТs something else. Something the admiral heard from Marquez.Ф

УWhat?Ф

УMarquez said that DeSilvo told him that there was a diehard colony not all that far from here,Ф Norla said.

Yuri looked up at her sharply. УWhat?Ф

УDiehards. About seven hundred kilometers away. Sounds like DeSilvo was talking as if he knew all about them.Ф

YuriТs insides froze up hard as the ice on the surface of Glister. Whatever good mood or marginally less hostile attitude toward DeSilvo he might have had died in that moment. Everyone knew about diehardsЧthe saying was they might die hard, but the way they lived was harder. They might hold out two or three generations, in whatever wreckage was left behind when the main population left, but there were limits to how much could be scavenged, how completely supplies could be used and recycled, limits to how long the machines vital to their survival could be kept running, how often they could be repaired. And two or three generations was long enough for inbreeding to be a problem, or for any system of succession to the leadership to collapse. From what Yuri had read, it was political problems as often as starvation or life-support collapse that did in diehard colonies.

УWhatТs he done for them?Ф Yuri asked, already knowing the answer.

УSo far as Marquez could tell, nothing.Ф

Yuri looked at Norla. Her expression was carefully neutral. Yuri couldnТt help but wonder why she was telling him this, and telling him now.

УThis place could support hundreds of people indefinitely,Ф he said. УAnd in all this time he hasnТt lifted a finger to help starving people when he could fly a food drop to them in two hours?Ф

УHold it. Hold it. We donТt know theyТre starving.Ф

УEver hear of an overweight diehard?Ф

УEver hear of a diehard who didnТt shoot first and ask questions laterЧor maybe not ask at all? And besides, think about it. DeSilvo was in temporal confinement for something like a hundred years. He was still in it up until a few days before we landedЧand weТve only been here a few days. I canТt even see how heТd know they were there. We did an infrared-signature search from orbit, andwe didnТt pick up anything. What sort of detectors hashe got?Ф

УHe could have anything,Ф Yuri said. УStars alone know what he pulled out of the Dark Museum.Ф

УBut he couldnТt know for sure theyТd be there unless he had some sort of vast network of ArtInts scanning the planet for the last hundred years, or unless he started looking for diehards the second he came out of temporal confinement.Ф

УSeems like a lot of trouble to take either way,Ф Yuri conceded. УBut keeping sensor equipment running that long in this environment without human maintenance would be close-on impossible. Probably a lot easier to search for the diehards once he woke up.Ф

УAgreed. Butwhy would he search for diehards?Ф Norla asked. УSeven hundred kilometers away makes it a pretty wide search radius if heТs just trying to secure his perimeter or some damn thing. And why would he make it known he found them? Either he just accidentally let it slip to Marquez, or else he had a reason for doing it. And I donТt think it could be an accident.Ф

УWhy not?Ф

УDeSilvoТs done nothing but plan for our arrival since before you were born. HeТs a planner, a schemer. HeТs not the sort who does things impulsively.Ф

УSo what would his reasons be?Ф

Norla shook her head. УI donТt know. But unless heТs even more out of touch about human behavior than I thought, heТdhave to know that Marquez would repeat the newsЧand that sooner or later, probably sooner, the word would get to youЧthe son of Glistern refugees,and the man who tried to kill him a few days ago. So why would he do that?Ф

Yuri shrugged. УMaybe whatever plan heТs got canТt be affected by what I do.Ф