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

1. THAT THE MILITARY FORCES OF ALL NATIONS
THAT ARE INCLUDED IN THE ALLIANCE TO
WHOM THIS MESSAGE IS ADDRESSED CEASE
FORTHWITH THEIR OPERATIONS IN ALL THEATERS OF COMBAT.
2. THAT THE FORCES REFERRED TO IN (1) ABOVE WITHDRAW COMPLETELY ALL PERSONNEL, ARMAMENTS, MUNITIONS, AND MATERIEL TO THE APPROPRIATE INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED FRONTIERS.
3. THAT THE ILLEGALLY IMPOSED REGIMES IN
HONG KONG, TAIWAN, AND SOUTH KOREA BE
DISSOLVED AND THAT NEW GOVERNMENTS BE
ESTABLISHED BY PROCESSES OF FREELY CONDUCTED AND INTERNATIONALLY SUPERVISED
ELECTIONS.
4. THAT AN INTERNATIONAL BODY BE CONVENED,
COMPOSED OF REPRESENTATIVES OF BOTH THE
EASTERN AND WESTERN ALLIANCES OF NATIONS, TO EXPLORE WAYS OF LIMITING AND ULTIMATELY OF TERMINATING TOTALLY THE
DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT OF STRATEGIC WEAPONS SYSTEMS OF ALL TYPES.

WE HEREBY GIVE NOTICE ALSO THAT IF FORMAL ACCESSION TO THESE DEMANDS HAS NOT BEEN RECEIVED BY 12:00 NOON, LOCAL TIME IN WASHINGTON,

nr~ fi
D.C., ON THE 27TH DAY OF NOVEMBER 2007, A STATE
OF WAR WILL BE DEEMED TO EXIST BETWEEN ALL
NATIONS INCLUDED IN THE GRAND ALLIANCE OF PRO
GRESSIVE PEOPLES REPUBLICS, AND THE NATIONS THAT
ARE SIGNATORY TO THE TREATY OF THE ALLIANCE OF
WESTERN DEMOCRATIC STATES.

ALEXANDER GEORGE SHERMAN,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WOLFGANG KLESSENHAUER,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF EUROPE MAXWELL JAMES DOMINIC,
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CANADA YURI JOSEF SASHKAVOV,
PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF EURO-RUSSIA MARTIN CRAIG-WILSON,
PRIME MINISTER OF THE FEDERATION OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
SIMIL KUNG YO SAN,
PRESIDENT OF THE MALAYSIAN AND INDONESIAN
FEDERATION
YASHIRO MITSOBAKU,
PRESIDENT OF JAPAN

ISSUED FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.
12:00 NOON, 25 NOVEMBER 2007.

Aub stared once more at the copy of the ultimatum that lay on top of the console beside him. His eyes still registered a stunned disbelief, even after two days, and kept straying back to the document as if hoping that some mystical agency might miraculously have changed the grim message carned in its words All hopes were gone now, drowned in the dull sickness that lay in the pit of his stomach So now, after everything, it had finally come to this The nightmare that he had staunchly and trustingly refused to believe for
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all that time was really happening. He felt bitter, betrayed, and confused.
A few feet away from him, seated in the second operatorТs position in the Control Room, Clifford was engrossed with updating the fire-control programs via the BIACs. Deep below them in the lower recesses of Brunnermont, the dreadful machine that Aub had grown to hate was primed and ready, generators humming and beam ori and up to power, waiting to unleash its holocaust. There were only minutes left to run before the ultimatum expired. For the past forty-eight hours, Aub and Clifford had been taking shifts to maintain a constant readiness against the possibility of a surprise attack during the ultimatum period. But there had been no change in the pattern of activity across the global scene; there had been no acknowledgment of the ultimatum at all. Reports from the fronts were that the fighting was continuing unabated.
Aub attracted CliffordТs attention and indicated his desire for Clifford to keep his eye on things alone for a moment while he took a final breath of air outside the Control Room before the action commenced. Clifford nodded his assent, whereupon Aub removed his BIAC skull-harness, stretched his cramped limbs gratefully, rose from the console, and walked out to the access gallery where he stopped to lean on the balustrade and stare out over the Operational Command Floor.
The scene that confronted him, with its air of calm, well-regulated efficiency and smooth organization, could have been the inside of the control center for a space mission . . . were it not for the preponderance of military uniforms. All the communications posts were manned; the display screens were alive; the duty operators were all at their assigned positions and attending to their well-rehearsed tasks, while groups
no
of senior officers surveyed the proceedings various parts of the room. To one side President man, Vice President Donald Reyes, and Del Secretary Foreshaw were standing at the center semicircle of aides in front of a permanently communications console, ready for any last-m response to the ultimatum. This all reminded grimly of a prison warden in an earlier age star by for an eleventh-hour reprieve before executing tence on a condemned criminal. He doubted if would be any reprieve of the death sentence that been passed on mankind.
He asked himself again why he had faile declare his dissociation from the business long fore this. Why had he not walked out? Had it simply because he had continued deep down to be in the man he had once called a friend until it wa late? Or was it now just a case of animal sur~ Was he, like the priests performing their rituals a sacrificial altars below, just reacting to the sul scious knowledge that only the power of the new they served could preserve them through the ~
that was ordained to come? But whatever things written on the pages that Destiny had not yet closed, there could be no going back now; to qi this stage would be merely to guarantee the gr disaster.