"Gordon R. Dickson - Analog - The Far Call Part" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

private dining room on the ninth floor; and with security guards manning the elevators, they were taken
down to it. The Deputy Ministers were already there; and Paul Fanzone, the United States President,
was less than ten minutes later in arriving. Jen caught the eye of Warner as the press secretary entered the
reception room a few steps behind the stocky, dark-skinned figure of the President: Warner shook his
head, briefly.
Jen felt cold. If the shake of Warn's head meant that the President had turned him down without
excuse or explanation . . . for a crazy second he toyed with the idea of turning in his resignation. Then he
recovered into common sense. Far from resigning, he knew that he would fight to hold on to this job if
anyone tried to take it away from him. He had no need for anyone to remind him that as a
newsman-turned-diplomat he was a paper tiger, but the Mars mission was representational of everything
in which he had ever believed, and he wanted to be part of it.
But the reception had gone tinny and hollow on him. He had skipped dinner in order to spend the
time with Lin; and that had been real and solid enough. But now, with a glass of champagne in him that
had gone directly from his empty stomach to his head, he was back on the quicksand of politics again.
Standing with his refilled glass in a corner of the reception room, he had a moment's disorientation in
which all the other people present seemed to be going through some sort of ritual dance, making
expected gestures, speaking expected commonplaces, and murmuring expected replies.
In the midst of all this, however, he caught sight of Wendy and Tad Hansard. As he had said to Lin,
she and Wendy were alike, physically; and the sight of Wendy was almost like an anchor in reality.
Returning from his momentary excursion into bitterness, he was struck with an idea. He moved across the
room and found a second to speak quietly in the ear of Tad.
"Got a second?"
Tad, still smiling at the wife of the Air Force general to whom he and Wendy had been talking, turned
casually so that he faced Jen. Together they took a step aside from the others.
"What is it?" Tad asked.
"I haven't had any luck getting through to Fanzone about the experiment schedule," Jen said. "Why
don't you have a shot at getting him alone, yourself?"
Tad smiled bleakly.
"I don't know how to talk to Presidents," he said in his soft, southern voice. "How do you do it?"
"The same way you talk to anyone else."
"All right," said Tad. "But I don't hope for anything. I never made the debating society back in high
school or college."
"It isn't a debate," said Jen. "You know your business. You're the astronaut, the MarsnautтАФthe man
who knows. Just tell it like it isтАФto the President."
"I've got nothing to lose," said Tad. "So I'll try it. But I got a hunch it ain't a-gonna work." His tone
was light, but the skin around his eyes was drawn tight.
He turned back to the general's wife and Wendy. Jen faded away until he found another
conversational group, this one with Warner Rethe in it. He stuck with the group, hoping to get a second
with Warn, alone. But when the conversation dwindled down to a four-headed matter, Warner excused
himself and moved away so abruptly that Jen could not follow without making it obvious he was doing
just that.
He kept his eye on Warn after that, and made a couple of further attempts to get close to the man.
But it became more than obvious that Warn was determined not to be caught with him in any
conversational group where Jen could ask him about the President. However, later he caught a glimpse
of Fan-zone and Tad, momentarily alone. Tad was speaking and the President was listening and
nodding.
The reception ended at ten-thirty with a cold buffet supper. Jen found himself eating like a starving
man; which, he suddenly decided, he was. With food inside him, optimism and courage returned at once.
He was turning over in his head several wild ideas of insisting on talking to Fanzone before the President
left, when he felt a tap on his elbow. He turned around, still holding his fork and plate, to look directly