"Jack C. Haldeman II & Jack Dann - High Steel" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Jack C)

every telltale in the room went from green to red. Outside the port, the universe was lit with a blinding
white flash.
"Jesus Christ," cried Carl, frozen. "No!" A whole bank of rockets along one arm had fired at once.
Not one rocket, not ten; but hundreds of them.
The station swung in a ballet of death, caught in an ungainly pirouette by the uneven forces. The
wrenching stresses pulled at the station in a way that could never have been anticipated. The metal
twisted, buckled, finally reached the breaking point and sheared. Before their horrified eyes, the station
broke apart, one end of the barbell ripping away. It headed inexorably for the geodesic, a precise arc of
destruction. The rest of the station, out of control, cartwheeled wildly away.
Time froze. John was held by fear, the old fear taught to him by Leonard Broken-finger. It was the
fear of one who can see with his heart, who can sense the spirits in the sweat lodge and in the vision pit.
As bits of steel, aluminum, and boron silvered through space, catching the sun in their terrible dance, John
became a wichasha wakan. He saw through the eyes of his people; he was in the center of the circle.
Those aboard the geodesic must have tried to get out of the way. Yet it happened too fast; they had
no chance. John's people were in there; his spirit reached for them.
The terrible fear, the crawling fear broke through his heart. "Oh Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery, all
those people, don't let them die ... " John felt the wings of Wakinyan-tanka, the great thunderbird. They
were made out of the essence of darkness; they were as cold as ice, yet they burned his skin.
The geodesic was struck dead center. It burst apart as metal and people were torn and tossed in a
thousand different directions. Steel struts and beams careened end over end, but the tumbling limbs and
bodies of the dead seemed to be propelled by what looked like red gas: blood.
He heard himself screaming, and he remembered: Wa-kinyan-tanka eats his young, for they make
him many; yet he is still one. He has a huge beak filled with jagged teeth, yet he has no head. He
has wings, yet he has no shape.
From somewhere distant, Sam yelled: "Do something, Carl, do something."
From somewhere else, came Carl's voice: "I can't."
And Sam: "Save the others."
Carl: "I can't stop it. Calculations are too complex. I can't."
John felt the cold breaking of death, the death of all, Indian and wasicun alike. He broke, and was
made whole. He pulled Carl from the chair, sat down in front of the computer console. Sam yelled, Carl
screamed. These were disruptive forces, he blocked them out, ran his fingers lightly over the keyboard.
He touched a button and a single rocket fired on the wildly careening remains of the station. He
touched another button and a rocket fired someplace else on the skin of the station. There was a rhythm,
a balance. Action and reaction, all parts of the whole.
Gently he felt his way into the heart of the computer. He did things, things happened. Forces were
moved, stresses transposed from one place to another. It was all a matter of balance, of achieving a point
of equilibrium. The computer was a prayer and he was in the pit again, close to the spirits that flicked in
the dark and the thunder-beings that carried the fear. His fingers danced over the keyboard. He felt,
rather than saw, the forces he was manipulating. It was internal, not external: he was part and parcel of
the things he did. He grabbed the lightpen and stroked the image of the runaway station on the screen.
Under his fingers more rockets burst into life, counterbalancing the undesired motion. With the sureness
of an ancient hand painting a Hopi jar, he sought out the proper forms, the pattern. The station slowed.
The fear, the ancient fear carried by prayer, was breaking him. It gave him the emptiness the wasicun
built, transforming it into a wisdom. He frowned, added a few last strokes with the lightpen, tapped a few
more buttons. The station stopped, motion arrested.
John slumped forward, drained of energy. He shook himself, looked around, half expecting to see the
rolling desert, the towering mesas. Instead he saw Sam and Carl, though he didn't recognize them at first.
They stared at him with amazement, with fear, unable and unwilling to move, to break the spell. They
could not comprehend what they had just seen.
John looked at them and understood that, and more. Much more. He stood.