"Dickson, Gordon - Stranger Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

He got to a phone at last and called everyone he could think of on the west coast who might know where his wife could be reached. But, as he had half-expected, he learned nothing. With his last call he hired a detective agency in San FranciscoЧanother indulgence that would have been impossible two days before, but his only real chance of finding her. Ona had no engineering degree, but there might be other work openings on this space factory. Even if that did not pan out, his own salary would be enough to make life secure for her, and once a year he would be getting furloughs to come back and see her.

He returned to the barracks, looked for Church's cubicle and found him sitting on his bed, talking with two of the other trainees.

"Oh, hello. Merlin," Church said, looking up. "Come in and shut the door. We're just comparing notes on the situation here."

He introduced Merlin to the other two: a middleaged, slightly overweight man named Sloller Fread, with the patient face of a basset hound, and a blond young man named Bill Sumash, who looked as if he was just out of school. The comparing of notes Church referred to was clearly a gossip and rumor session. Merlin sat on a corner of Church's bed and listened.

"Oh, it's a scam," Church was saying. "The idea's not so much to set up a factory station in orbit as to get their share of U.N. development funds for nations with low GNP like ours."

"But," said Stoller, "the U.N. doesn't fund private corporations."

"This isn't a private corporation," said Church. "It's a consortium of corporations with federal backing- As that, of course, it still can't get U.N. funds directly, but the federal government can, and then make funds of its own available to the consortium."

"But that's a great thing, isn't it?" said Sumash. "It could be the beginning of a national space-based industry, after all."

"Don't be a dupe," Church said. "This country's too impoverished to maintain a space-based industry. If we'd already had oneЧif the government had pushed one when they should've, twenty years agoЧ we could be in a position to compete nowadays. But we're not."

"We dropped out," said Sumash. "Now we don't have the chips to get back into the game."

"The point is that the U.S/ lost the original virtues that made it what it was," Church said. "And like an old, fat-bellied ex-athlete, it wouldn't exert itself while a bad situation ran downhill and got to be a situation nobody could get out of. You're right, you know, we don't have the chips to get back into the space gameЧand we never will. Our golden age is gone."

Merlin got up. He had heard all this too often. It was all true, but life had no room for such large concerns now. Life was lying in the blessed privacy of his cubicle and a dream about Ona being found by the detective agency, and of their being together again.

"Sorry," he said to Church, "I can't keep my eyes open. Next time..."

He nodded to the other two as he stepped to the door of Church's cubicle.

"Glad to have met you," he said, and a moment later he was out on the barracks floor, headed for his own cubicle and peace.

The next few weeks were-filled with classes and training. He found himself going to bed exhausted every night. He did not miss Church, so it was something of a shock, when he was next in the centra! administration building, to see him there, dressed in a regular civilian office suit. Merlin had come in to get approval for a draw against his wages to pay the detective agency.

"Church!" he said, as the other walked hastily by him in the corridor. "Sam Church!"

Church looked around and saw him. He came over to shake hands.

"Merlin!" he said. "How're you doing? I meant to get down to the barracks and took you up, but they've got us all so busy here on planning..."

"You did make cadre, then!" said Merlin. "Good for you!"

"Thanks," said Church. He lowered his voice and looked around, but the corridor was momentarily deserted. "I really was going to get in touch with you, in fact. Working in this place, I hear about things ahead of time. They've got wind of some agitators in the trainee corps. They're going to begin making inquiries tomorrow. I wanted to warn you."

"Me?" Merlin laughed. "I don't know any agitators."

"Of course not. I don't think there actually are any. That's why I was going to warn you. Investigations like this are under pressure. They've got to produce results to justify whoever authorized them. That means they're going to be picking up on anything at all that can be made to seem socially destructive. You remember how you sat in on some of those sessions in my cubicle..."

"Once," said Merlin.

"Only once? Well," said Church, "at any rate, you know how harmless they were. I've already told the investigation team all about them and no one's wor' ried. But just the same, you might want to say you didn't know anything about them..."