"Orson Scott Card - Ender's Saga 03 - Xenocide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Card Orson Scott)

the chain of family reaching back for seven generations on the seas of Trondheim
would end with him. And now, for her sake, he had given up the sea himself.
Giving up Trondheim was the hardest thing she could ever have asked of Jakt, and
he had said yes without hesitation.
Perhaps he would go back someday, and, if he did, the oceans, the ice, the
storms, the fish, the desperately sweet green meadows of summer would still be
there. But his crews would be gone, were already gone. The men he had known
better than his own children, better than his wife-- those men were already
fifteen years older, and when he returned, if he returned, another forty years
would have passed. Their grandsons would be working the boats then. They
wouldn't know the name of Jakt. He'd be a foreign shipowner, come from the sky,
not a sailor, not a man with the stink and yellowy blood of skrika on his hands.
He would not be one of them.
So when he complained that she was ignoring him, when he teased about their lack
of intimacy during the voyage, there was more to it than an aging husband's
playful desire. Whether he knew he was saying it or not, she understood the true
meaning of his overtures: After what I've given up for you, have you nothing to
give to me?
And he was right-- she was pushing herself harder than she needed to. She was
making more sacrifices than needed to be made-- requiring overmuch from him as
well. It wasn't the sheer number of subversive essays that Demosthenes published
during this voyage that would make the difference. What mattered was how many
people read and believed what she wrote, and how many then thought and spoke and
acted as enemies of Starways Congress. Perhaps more important was the hope that
some within the bureaucracy of Congress itself would be moved to feel a higher
allegiance to humanity and break their maddening institutional solidarity. Some
would surely be changed by what she wrote. Not many, but maybe enough. And maybe
it would happen in time to stop them from destroying the planet Lusitania.
If not, she and Jakt and those who had given up so much to come with them on
this voyage from Trondheim would reach Lusitania just in time to turn around and
flee-- or be destroyed along with all the others of that world. It was not
unreasonable for Jakt to be tense, to want to spend more time with her. It was
unreasonable for her to be so single-minded, to use every waking moment writing
propaganda.
"You make the sign for the door, and I'll make sure you aren't alone in the
room."
"Woman, you make my heart go flip-flop like a dying flounder," said Jakt.
"You are so romantic when you talk like a fisherman," said Valentine. "The
children will have a good laugh, knowing you couldn't keep your hands off me
even for the three weeks of this voyage."
"They have our genes. They should be rooting for us to stay randy till we're
well into our second century."
"I'm well into my fourth millennium."
"When oh when can I expect you in my stateroom, Ancient One?"
"When I've transmitted this essay."
"And how long will that be?"
"Sometime after you go away and leave me alone."
With a deep sigh that was more theatre than genuine misery, he padded off down
the carpeted corridor. After a moment there came a clanging sound and she heard
him yelp in pain. In mock pain, of course; he had accidentally hit the metal