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

"Clear all channels," shouted Elliot. "What is that? Who's in trouble? Stranger, is Woquini okay? It
sounds like he's dying."
"He's not dying," said John. "He's living." He doubted Elliot would know the difference. He squeezed
the thruster and headed for the geodesic.

The Trans-United geodesic globe was actually a pleasure station brought in for the topping-off party.
It was expensive, but the corporation could well afford it. There were enough gambling, sex, and cheap
thrills available to satisfy all but the most jaded palates.
Sleds, flitters, skids, and cycles clustered all around the end of the barbell-shaped station and the
docked geodesic. Parties like this brought the whores and hucksters out in force, along with the
independents looking for work, hoping to sign on with someone. Independents were always looking for
work; existence was precarious without corporate patronage. There were even private cabsтАФsmall
energy-squandering vehiclesтАФbearing the insignia of other corporations. They had come to check out the
competition, look over the terrain, make connections, wheel and deal.
Off in the distance solar collectors hung in silent, glittering beauty for kilometers and kilometers. To
John, they were a beadgame in space, mirrors for Earth. They were beautiful, they were useful. They
were in balance. The image of a bird in flight, somehow frozen, came to John. It was perfect: harmony
and balance. How could such things be made by the wasicun? All this for the frogskin.
John and Sam arrived simultaneously at the entrance to the geodesic. Sam's trajectory, which would
have given a computer a headache, was perfect. They had both known it would be. They unsuited and
allowed themselves to be dragged into the party.
The topping-off party was a tradition that went back hundreds of years, its origin lost in legend and
fable. At completion of work on a projectтАФbe it bridge, barn, or skyscraperтАФa flag, or sometimes a
tree, was placed on the highest part of the structure. It was a christening of sorts and accompanied by a
party, nearly always at the company's expense. If the owners declined to supply the whiskey for the
party, the flag was replaced by a broom, expressing the workers' displeasure and embarrassing the
company.
Like much of man's life on Earth, this tradition was carried into space. It was never planned, it just
happened. It gave the men roots, a sense of place. For the same reason, the person who directed the
placing of the beams was called a bellman, though bells hadn't been used as a signal in hundreds of years.
It was loud in the geodesic, much too loud for John. A mixture of floaters and corporation brass
milled around, along with a scattering of other hangers-on, independents, and whores. The corporation
brass were easy to spot by their obvious inability to handle zero-g. He picked out the floaters, equally
obvious by their advanced stages of intoxication. They were a mixed ethnic bag: Scandinavians,
Germans, Irish, Scots, Hispanics, the ever-present English. Most of them, however, were his own
people, in blood if not in thought. As usual, they were making fools of themselves before the white man.
He fought a rush of hatred, not only for the wasicun, but for his own people as well.
He was immediately ashamed, for in his heart he felt he was no different than the others. He found his
oblivion in his work, his dreams, his love of the immensities of space. They found their oblivion in booze,
sex, and drugs. He was a freak, the outcast, not they.
The only other person he had met up here who came close to holding to the ways of the People was
Sam. But Sam had chosen space; he had not been drafted. He seemed to have struck a balance between
the old life and the new. In a way, John envied him.
He sometimes thought he saw some of the signs of the old life in Anna, though they were deeply
buried. He got the feeling that she had turned her back on her past. John was a constant reminder of
those times to her. Perhaps, he thought, that was why they never got along ...
A young woman drifted over to John, offered him a nipple of scrag. He politely refusedтАФit would be
a double bind if he was high and anything happened. Most of the floaters could handle it, but he knew he
couldn't. He would be leaving the party as soon as possible.
A well-dressed man in his late sixties was holding court with a man about half his age. The younger