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

the world. But the People were the world!
The lights flashed twice, a signal. Fred Ransome, one of the bosses, walked through the wardroom
shouting, "All right, riggers. Play time's over. Now move. Get yourselves back into the dark."
John rose, cleared his head. He was pulling a double shift, like most of the other floaters. He didn't
mind the work, just the people he worked for. While he was working, he could forgetтАФforget that he
was outside the sacred circle, forget Anna's face and her words.
He would not take Anna, nor any of the whores. He was a wichasha wakan, a medicine man, even
here. He was. He was! They could not take that away from him, no matter where they moved him, no
matter what they made him do.
But in his heart, he was not so sure.

The shifts seemed to blur, one melting into another, as constant and predictable as the stars.
Somehow immense loads of planking moved into place. Endless floating mountains of beams were
connected into struts and decking. Slowly the skeleton grew, took shape. The two massive globes at
opposing ends of the station were each large enough to house a fair-sized city. They dwarfed the tube
that connected them, even though the tube itself was over fifty meters in diameter. Pipes, endless mazes
of twisted wires, and interlocking tunnels ran through the length of the tubes. Waldos walked down large
tracks where the men would not be able to stand the gravity. In the middle of the connecting tube was a
smaller globe, ringed with ports. It would hold the personnel manning the station.
Now the silvery covering was in place, and what had once looked as light as a delicate mobile
seemed to gain in mass as strut after strut was overlaid with the metallic skin.
Like predators circling a great whale, the tiny skids and larger Trans-United ships floated, patient as
the coming and going of the seasons. Even from where he stood at the aft end of the barbell, John could
make out the details of the jury-rigged skids, odd pieces of junk bought or stolen, thrown together almost
casually. The skids were dangerous, the reason for the high mortality rate of the freebooters. But they
were free; free to die, work, or skiff off toward the asteroids, there to mine and get by until caught.
The freebooters were the people who had slipped through the otherwise smoothly running cogs of life
in space. They belonged to no nation-state, no corporation, no colony. They came and went as they
pleased, selling services and paying for what they needed, stealing if they could not pay. They were rarely
bothered by the officialsтАФin this area, the Trans-United PatrolтАФas long as they maintained a low profile.
Over a hundred thousand people lived and worked in space, and the freebooters were an insignificant
percentage. They moved easily, usually unseen, from the richest condo to the roughest manufacturing
complex. If they made waves, they were dealt with, usually by dumping them out into space. Without a
suit.
The skids held pleasures of a coarse and vulgar nature. The Trans-United corporation men on site
made much use of them, the illegality of the situation adding greatly to the excitement. The freebooters
were one of the darker sides of life in space.
But their lives were free.
The rest of the crew caught up with John. He clipped himself to Sam Woquini and they started to
crab their way across the silvery skin of this dormant creature they had helped create. They worked as
one, easily, as they had for the last year, without giving danger a thought, for their interdependence was
mutual.
The Boss had ordered this final walk-through. As usual, he had wanted it done immediately.
Everything had to be rushed. They had finished three weeks ahead of schedule and still the Boss hadn't
let up. John tried not to let it bother him; it was just the city-dweller mentality, the wasicun way of life.
They had yet to learn patience, to learn how to flow easily with the life-forces.
All across the station the floaters drifted, making their final visual check. It was largely unnecessary,
but protocol required it. They were dwarfed by the gargantuan structure they had given birth to, small
specks against their grandiose creation.
John let his mind wander as he and Sam made their lazy way across the surface. He recognized the