"Gordon R. Dickson - The Outposter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dickson Gordon R)

panels, still closed, held the collapsed structures that would transform the day-lounge appearance of the
compart-ment into a bedroom for sleeping. He made a routine examination of the room, its equip-ment
and storage cabinets, before taking out a message player and extruding a side table by one of the
armchairs to hold it.

He sat down in the armchair, inserted the message into the player, and flicked the switch.

Abruptly the appearance of the compart-ment was gone from around him. Instead, he appeared to be
seated in a room he knew well тАФthe library-study of Wilkes Danielson, Mark's tutor since Mark's arrival
on Earth from Garnera VI, five years before. The library was unchanged except for a new bookcase
filling the corner where Mark's study console had formerly sat, to the left of the tall window on the other
side of which was Wilkes's own console. Otherwise, in its heavy reference files, its bookcases full of
ancient, paper-sheeted, cardboard-and-leather-bound books, the old room was the same.

Mark could almost smell the books. Wilkes was sitting in his high wing chair, swivelled around now,
away from his console, as Mark had seen him sit so many times in the eve-nings when their study periods
were over, and their talk went off into many other topicsтАФ those same talks which had grown scarce,
these last few years, as Mark had become more and more involved in the training needed to qualify him
for his certificate as an outposter.

Now the image of Wilkes Danielson looked at himтАФa slight, thin, black man in his mid-fifties, almost
bald, but with something fragilely handsome and still youthful about him, underneath the wrinkles and the
near-vanished hairline. The lips of the image moved, and Wilkes's voice came to Mark's ears.

"Hello, Mark," it said. "I deliberately sent this on ahead of the ship, so that you wouldn't think I was still
trying to talk you out of going."

Wilkes hesitated.

"I've done something you probably won't approve ofтАФI don't know," he went on. "You never told me
exactly why you wanted to go out and lose yourself there among the Colonies, when what everyone else
wantsтАФa secure home here in the Earth-CityтАФcould be yours almost for the asking. There are only ten
Trophy winners in any academic year. With your Trophy and my recommendation it'd be only a matter of
time until you made enough of a success for yourself, in any one of half a dozen fields, to be voted
permanent ex-emption from the lottery ... but we've gone into this before..."

Wilkes's eyes wandered. Once more he seemed to search for words.

"I've never challenged you about your going out," he went on, after a few seconds, "be-cause I knew
there was no point in asking if you didn't want to tell me. Ever since your foster father first sent you to
meтАФa thirteen-year-old fresh from the OutpostsтАФI've known two things. One, your mind isn't going to
be changed on anything you set out to do, and two, whatever it is, if it's humanly possible, you'll end up
doing it."

He hesitated.

"You're too intelligent to dedicate yourself to getting revenge for your parentsтАФeven if revenge were
possible. How could anyone ever track down a Meda V'Dan ship that burn-ed an Outpost eighteen
years ago? But what bothers all of us who've known you here is what other reason could there be for
burying yourself in the Outposts andColonies ? You're something more than just a Trophy winner, Mark.