"Anderson, Poul - 1966 Flandry 07 - Ensign Flandry" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

"Ah. Pleased to see you. Don't see you often."
"Press of business, your Highness. The loss is ours."
"Yes. Understand you're going away."
"The Starkad affair, your Highness."
"What?аЕаOh, yes. That. How dreadfully serious and constructive. I do hope you can relax with us here."
"We look forward to doin' so, your Highness, though I'm 'fraid we'll have to leave early."
"Hmph." Josip half turned.
He mustn't be offended. "Goes without sayin' we both regret it the worst," Hauksberg purred. "Might I beg for another invitation on my return?"
"Well, really!"
"I'll be even more bold. My nephew's comin' to Terra. Frontier lad, y' know, but as far as I can tell from stereos and letters, quite a delightful boy. If he could actually meet the heir apparent of the EmpireЧwhy, better'n a private audience with God."
"Well. Well, you don't say. Of course. Of course." Josip beamed as he greeted the next arrival.
"Isn't that risky?" Alicia asked when they were out of earshot.
"Not for my nephew," Hauksberg chuckled. "Haven't got one. And dear Josip's memory is rather notoriously short."
He often wondered what would become of the Empire when that creature mounted the throne. But at least Josip was weak. If, by then, the Policy Board was headed by a man who understood the galactic situationаЕаHe bent and kissed his lady's hand. "Got to drift off, m'dear. Enjoy yourself. With luck, things'll still be fairly decorous when we dare scoot off."
A new dance was called and Alicia was swept away by an admiral. He was not so old, and his decorations showed that he had seen outplanet service. Hauksberg wondered if she would return home tonight.
He maneuvered to the wall, where the crowd was thinner, and worked his way along. There was scant time to admire the view above the dome's rim, though it was fantastic. The sea marched ashimmer beneath a low moon. Long waves broke intricately, virginally white on the outer ramparts; he thought he could hear them growl. The darkness enclosed by the Lunar crescent was pinpointed with city lights. The sky illumination had now formed a gigantic banner overhead, the Sunburst alive in a field of royal blue as if stratospheric winds bugled salute. Not many stars shone through so much radiance.
But Hauksberg identified Regulus, beyond which his mission lay, and Rigel, which burned in the heart of the Merseian dominions. He shivered. When he reached the champagne table, a glass was very welcome. "Good evening," said a voice.
Hauksberg exchanged bows with a portly man wearing a particolored face. Lord Advisor Petroff was not exactly in his element at a festival like this. He jerked his head slightly. Hauksberg nodded. They gossipped a little and drifted apart. Hauksberg was detained by a couple of bores and so didn't manage to slip out the rear and catch a gravshaft downward for some while.
The others sat in a small, sealed office. They were seven, the critical ones on the Policy Board: gray men who bore the consciousness of power like added flesh. Hauksberg made the humility salute. "My sincere apologies for keepin' my lords waitin'," he said.
"No matter," Petroff said. "I've been explaining the situation."
"We haven't seen any data or computations, though," da Fonseca said. "Did you bring them, Lord Hauksberg?"
"No, sir. How could I? Every microreader in the palace is probably bugged." Hauksberg drew a breath. "My lords, you can examine the summation at leisure, once I'm gone. The question is, will you take my word and Lord Petroff's for the moment? If matters are as potentially serious as I believe, then you must agree a secret negotiator should be dispatched. If, on t'other hand, Starkad has no special significance, what have we lost by settlin' the dispute on reasonable terms?"
"Prestige," Chardon said. "Morale. Credibility, the next time we have to counter a Merseian move. I might even be so archaic as to mention honor."
"I don't propose to compromise any vital interest," Hauksberg pleaded, "and in all events, whatever concord I may reach'll have to be ratified here. My lords, we can't be gone long without someone noticin'. But if you'll listenЧ"
He launched his speech. It had been carefully prepared. It had better be. These six men, with Petroff, controlled enough votes to swing a decision his way. Were they prevailed on to call a privy meeting tomorrow, with a loaded quorum, Hauksberg would depart with the authority he needed.
OtherwiseаЕаNo, he mustn't take himself too seriously. Not at the present stage of his career. But men were dying on Starkad.
In the end, he won. Shaking, sweat running down his ribs, he leaned on the table and scarcely heard Petroff say, "Congratulations. Also, good luck. You'll need plenty of that."
2
Night on StarkadЧ
Tallest in the central spine of Kursoviki Island was Mount Narpa, peaking at almost twelve kilometers. So far above sea level, atmospheric pressure was near Terran standard; a man could safely breathe and men had erected Highport. It was a raw sprawl of spacefield and a few score prefabs, housing no more than five thousand; but it was growing. Through the walls of his office, Commander Max Abrams, Imperial Naval Intelligence Corps, heard metal clang and construction machines rumble.
His cigar had gone out again. He mouthed the stub until he finished reading the report on his desk, then leaned back and touched a lighter to it. Smoke puffed up toward a blue cloud which already hung under the ceiling of the bleak little room. The whole place stank. He didn't notice.
"Damn!" he said. And deliberately, for he was a religious man in his fashion, "God damn!"
Seeking calmness, he looked at the picture of his wife and children. But they were home, on Dayan, in the Vega region of the Empire, more parsecs distant than he liked to think. And remote in time as well. He hadn't been with them for over a year. Little Miriam was changing so he'd never recognize her, Marta wrote, and David become a lanky hobbledehoy and Yael seeing such a lot of Abba Perlmutter, though of course he was a nice boyаЕаThere was only the picture, separated from him by a clutter of papers and a barricade of desk machines. He didn't dare animate it.
Nor feel sorry for yourself, you clotbrain. The chair creaked beneath his shifted weight. He was a stocky man, hair grizzled, face big and hooknosed. His uniform was rumpled, tunic collar open, twin planets of his rank tarnished on the wide shoulders, blaster at belt. He hauled his mind back to work.
Wasn't just that a flitter was missing, nor even that the pilot was probably dead. Vehicles got shot down and men got killed more and more often. Too bad about this kid, who was he, yes, Ensign Dominic Flandry. Glad I never met him. Glad I don't have to write his parents. But the area where he vanished, that was troubling. His assignment had been a routine reconnaissance over the Zletovar Sea, not a thousand kilometers hence. If the Merseians were getting that aggressiveаЕа
Were they responsible, though? Nobody knew, which was why the report had been bucked on to the Terran mission's Chief of Intelligence. A burst of static had been picked up at Highport from that general direction. A search flight had revealed nothing except the usual Tigery merchant ships and fishing boats. Well, engines did conk out occasionally; matщriel was in such short supply that the ground crews couldn't detect every sign of mechanical overwork. (When in hell's flaming name was GHQ going to get off its numb butt and realize this was no "assistance operation to a friendly people" but a war?) And given a brilliant sun like Saxo, currently at a peak of its energy cycle, no tricks of modulation could invariably get a message through from high altitudes. On the other hand, a scout flitter was supposed to be fail safe and contain several backup systems.
And the Merseians were expanding their effort. We don't do a mucking thing but expand ours in response. How about making them respond to us for a change? The territory they commanded grew steadily bigger. It was still distant from Kursoviki by a quarter of the planet's circumference. But might it be reaching a tentacle this way?
Let's ask. Can't lose much.
Abrams thumbed a button on his vidiphone. An operator looked out of the screen. "Get me the greenskin cine," Abrams ordered.
"Yes, sir. If possible."
"Better be possible. What're you paid for? Tell his cohorts all gleaming in purple and gold to tell him I'm about to make my next move."
"What, sir?" The operator was new here.
"You heard me, son. Snarch!"
Time must pass while the word seeped through channels. Abrams opened a drawer, got out his magnetic chessboard, and pondered. He hadn't actually been ready to play. However, Runei the Wanderer was too fascinated by their match to refuse an offer if he had a spare moment lying around; and damn if any Merseian son of a mother was going to win at a Terran game.
HmаЕаpromising development here, with the white bishopаЕаno, wait, then the queen might come under attackаЕаtempting to sic a computer onto the problemаЕаbetcha the opposition didаЕаmaybe notаЕаah, so.
"Commandant Runei, sir."
An image jumped to view. Abrams could spot individual differences between nonhumans as easily as with his own species. That was part of his business. An untrained eye saw merely the alienness. Not that the Merseians were so odd, compared to some. Runei was a true mammal from a terrestroid planet. He showed reptile ancestry a little more than Homo Sapiens does, in hairless pale-green skin, faintly scaled, and short triangular spines running from the top of his head, down his back to the end of a long heavy tail. That tail counterbalanced a forward-leaning posture, and he sat on the tripod which it made with his legs. But otherwise he rather resembled a tall, broad man. Except for complex bony convolutions in place of external ears, and brow ridges over-hanging the jet eyes, his head and face might almost have been Terran. He wore the form-fitting black and silver uniform of his service. Behind him could be seen on the wall a bell-mouthed gun, a ship model, a curious statuette: souvenirs of far stars.
"Greeting, Commander." He spoke fluent Anglic, with a musical accent. "You work late."
"And you've dragged yourself off the rack early," Abrams grunted. "Must be about sunrise where you are."
Runei's glance flickered toward a chrono. "Yes, I believe so. But we pay scant attention here."