"Hogan, James P - The Genesis Machine p260-end" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

In the next half-hour, Clifford repeated the performance on a series of other preprepared targets, including the burned-out shell of a shuttle booster that had been orbiting high above Earth for over ten years. In each case the results were as spectacular as the first. The shuttle booster demonstration showed that Jericho could be controlled right down to destructive levels that were far lower than the minimum unleashed
by a thermonuclear explosion; it was vaporized equivalent of less than one hundred tons of TNT.
For his finale, Clifford brought up views of fiФ~ ferent targets on separate screens, the locations scattered across hundreds of miles of Arctic С~ ness. Then he announced that, as already prearr~ ten dummy warheads would be launched toward ous parts of the North American continent from ing space vehicles simulating ORBS satellites. ~4 mock attack was set in motion, the trajectories i warheads were reported on an additional
hooked into the regular tracking network.
УThe fire-control computers have been fed ti ordinates of the ground targets,Ф he announced.
are also being updated continually with the in to-instant positions of the incoming missiles, are now being tracked automatically by the s~ lance system. What I am about to do is actival focusing system and set the fire-control routii direct the weapon on to each of the targets in tu will fire on each target for exactly one milliontF second. Focus will activate ten seconds from . .
The countdown ticked by in a way that w now familiar.
As zero flashed up, all five targets exp together; at the same instant all traces of the a ing missile salvo were lost. The action had been less.
A stunned silence had taken over the room.
faces registered the dawning of the first full re tions of what all this meant. The five menacing i rooms were still spreading across the screens CliffordТs voice sounded again, still cool and d sionate.
УAllow me to put what you have just seen perspective. In the last demonstration, the J-r~
was operating at low power only, and the exposure time per target was one microsecond. With thoderate power and a longer exposure, it would be perfectly feasible to wipe out a large city. Simple calculations show that, without taxing the system, one hundred selected enemy cities could, once the relevant coordinates had been fed into the fire-control programs, be totally destroyed in just over one hundredth of a second.Ф
Hardly a word was spoken as one by one the screens went blank and the machines were shut down. Clifford emerged from the Control Room and looked down from the raised gallery over the silent upturned faces. His cheeks were hollow from the strain of more than a year of unbroken work, his eyes dark-rimmed from lack of sleep.
УYou demanded my knowledge and my skills to be harnessed for the ends of war,Ф he said. УYou have them.Ф
He said no more. There was nothing more to say.
















273
Chapter 22

After testing the intentions of the Wes nearly twelve months of escalating provocatio:
Eastern Alliance nations had satisfied themselvc no serious attempts would be forthcoming to hi their designs in India. The Afrab and Chinese fighting on the frontiers, committed originally fend the so-called PeopleТs Uprising, gradual sumed the role of regular armies of invasion internecine squabbles within the Indian nation forgotten as rival civil factions united and turn face the common threat, but by that time the coi cohesive power was draining fast.
Afrab armies took over all of the northwest and advanced southward to occupy the Kati Peninsula, little more than two hundred miles Bombay. In the east, the Chinese reached the of the Mahanadi River, and pushed along the of the Ganges to take Lucknow and Kanpur. was thus left precariously between the closing j2 the pincer with both of its main arteries of comm tion severed, all the time becoming more isola the potential source of relief was compressed in southern half of the subcontinent.
By then every armed satellite deployed b West was being marked by at least two hostile owers. The strategic calculations of the Easten

07A
showed a tip in the balance that would preolude the West from so much as contemplating an all-out conflict, and developments in India seemed to confirm
it.
The Vladivostok government declared its commitment to a crusade for the reunification of Siberia and Russia, denouncing the Moscow regime as unrepresentative. A mood of defeatism swept across Europe as Euro-Russian and Siberian armies clashed with renewed ferocity west of the Urals. The Afrabs struck northward from Iraq into the Caucasus; Americans and Europeans counterattacked from eastern Turkey.
The world braced itself.

Alexander George Sherman, President of the United States and cosignatory to the Alliance of Western Democracies, sipped approvingly at his whiskey and allowed his head to sink back into the luxurious leather padding of one of the armchairs facing the fireplace in the sitting room that adjoined the presidential study. The eyes that looked over the rim of his glass at the guest sitting opposite bore the marks of the burden of Atlas. And yet the expression in those eyes was calm and composed, mellowed by the compassion that comes with maturity and the wisdom of a thousand years.
УThe provocations to which we are being subjected might seem to constitute a clear-cut justification for using the J-bomb without restriction,Ф he said. УI am satisfied that were I to give the word, our enemies would be completely and utterly crushed within an hour. However, I must consider not only the heat of the moment today, but also the cool that will come when the world looks back from tomorrow.Ф
Bradley Clifford tasted his own drink and looked back without speaking.

1)7i;