"Jeff Hecht - The Crystal Highway" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hecht Jeff)

you."
"Just do it," muttered Lambrecht gruffly. He sat in a chair by the side
of her desk, looking bored.
She frowned and turned back to the keyboard to enter the dates. After
another long wait, the machine printed "317 FEMALE EMPLOYEES" and began
scrolling names across the screen.
The words rolled too fast across the screen to make sense to Axel's
eyes. He would need to get a file with data on everyone on the list. It was
not much of a start, but it was something.
As the list neared the end of the alphabet, Lambrecht's hand reached
out to hit the HOLD DISPLAY button. "I didn't know you were here that far
back, Mary," he said, pointing at the name WILTH, MARY on the screen.
"Wish I hadn't been. Stayed a few years, when your grandfather ran the
place. Polished a lot of crystal. Then I left, for over thirty years. Should
have stayed away, but the money looked too good..."
"You must have known her.... "Axel burst out. He shivered. The old
woman could even BE Vaxila, angry and bitter after burning out long ago. How
awful would it be fifty years after the fires flickered out? Yet he couldn't
imagine that was possible; Vaxila had left on some unknown quest. The angry
old woman's presence was just a coincidence.
The old woman shook her head. "No poets ever lived here. Just people
who cut and polish crystal..."
"I can find her. I know I can," Axel insisted. "You must have
biographical files. Resumes. Personal data. Print it all out. The poems have
personal references; I can sort them out."
"No!"
"Mary!"
"I won't do it, Klaus! People who worked here have a right to their
privacy. This man has no business in our records, nosing into their lives."
"The law is not that strict, Mary. You can filter out what's sensitive.
The search program has a routine for that."
"What about my rights? I don't want him poking into my past."
"Then filter yourself out. But I want the rest of that data. Print it
out and I'll give it to the professor. Right now I'm going to take him out to
see the crystal."
****
The two men walked down endless corridors, past closed rooms that told
of better times. "In my grandfather's day, this place was alive with people.
There are only four workers now, plus Mary and me," Lambrecht sighed, pointing
down an empty corridor. "There's not really enough market to keep us here, but
we have obligations."
The stationmaster guided Axel down another corridor. He bent over to
push a button, and machinery somewhere underground began grinding. Part of the
wall slid back to show a broad window of thick glass.
"There is the Crystal Highway," Lambrecht swept his arm broadly. Deep
brown sand swirled in harsh winds that blew across the rough desert. Light
from the planet's sun burned down from the sky, beating upon the sand. In the
center of the scene, surprisingly close, a shimmering sheet of color ran
partway up the sky, a mad artist's vision of an overhead freeway in the
automobile age of old Earth. "The layer is over 50 kilometers long, but it's