"Brin, David - Earth (UC)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brin David)

his outstretched hand and sat back down. Not much for
formality. That's just as well, I suppose.
From the open door to the lavatory, Button shouted.
"Our game had delay after delay for injuries! Minor stuff,
fortunately. But I'm sure you understand, I couldn't let the
Tangoparu team down when I was needed. Not during the
finals against Nippon Electric!"
Normally, it might seem odd for a businessman in his
fifties to neglect appointments for a rugby game. But the
dusky giant toweling himself off in the loo seemed completely
unselfconscious, aglow with victory. Alex glanced at
his former teacher, who now worked for Button here in
New Zealand. Stan only shrugged, as if to say billionaires
made their own rules.
Button emerged wearing a dressing gown and drying his
hair with a terry-cloth towel. "Can I offer you anything, Dr.
Lustig? How about you, Stan?"
"Nothing, thank you," Alex said. Less reticent, Stan
accepted a Clenfiddich and spring water. Then Button settled
into a plush swivel chair, stretching his long legs beside
the kauri-wood table.
Whatever happens, Alex knew, this is where the trail ends. This is my last hope.
The Maori engineer-businessman regarded him with
piercing brown eyes. "I'm told you want to discuss the Iquitos
incident, Dr. Lustig. And the miniature black hole you
let slip out of your hands there. Frankly, I thought you'd be
sick of that embarrassment by now. What did some press
hacks call it then? A possible China Syndrome2."
Stan cut in. "A few sensationalists set off a five-minute
panic on the World Net, until the scientific community
showed everybody that tiny singularities like Alex's dissipate
harmlessly. They're too small to last long by themselves."

Button raised one dark eyebrow. "Is that so, Dr. Lustig?"

Alex had faced that question so many times since Iquitos.
By now he had countless stock answers--from five-second
sound bites for the vid cameras to ten-minute lullabies
for Senate investigators ... all the way to hours of abstruse
mathematics to soothe his fellow physicists. He really
ought to be used to it by now. Still the question burned, as
it had the first time.
"Talk to me, Lustig, " the reporter, Pedro Manella, had
demanded on that ashen afternoon in Peru, as they watched
rioting students set Alex's work site ablaze. "Tell me that
thing you made isn't about to eat its way to China. "
Lying had become so reflexive since then, it took some
effort to break the habit today. "Um, what did Stan tell
you?" he asked George Button, whose broad features still
glistened under a thin gloss of perspiration.