"James P. Hogan - Leapfrog" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

retiring off old spy chiefs in a world that doesnтАЩt need so many spies
anymore.тАЭ
Halloran sat back and gazed around the cabin. All of the
passengers were aboard and seated, and the crew were securing the
doors. The metaphoric umbilical back to Earth was about to be broken.
It had been over thirty years ago when he joined the Agency. Who would
have thought, then, that two months after turning fifty-five, heтАЩd have
found himself at a place like this, starting with a new outfit all over
again?
And of all outfits to have ended up with, one with a name like
Moscow-Chase-Manhattan Investments, Inc., which controlled a
development consortium headed by the Aeroflot Corporation, the Volga-
Hilton Hotels group, and Nippon Trans-Pacific Enterprises. Similar
combinations of interests had opened up the Moon to the point where its
materials-processing and manufacturing industries were mushrooming,
with regular transportation links in operation and constantly being
expanded, and tourism was starting to catch on~ If the U.S. space
effort hadnтАЩt fallen apart in the seventies and eighties, America could
have had all of it, decades ahead of the Soviets. As it was, America
was lucky to have come out of it, along with Europe and some of the
other more developed nations, as junior partners. The Second Russian
Revolution, they called it. Back to capitalism. Many people thought it
was better that way.
In the case of Mars, of course, the big obstacle to its similar
development was the planetтАЩs greater distance from Earth, with
correspondingly longer flight times. But that problem would go awayтАФ
and usher in a new era of manned exploration of the outer Solar SystemтАФ
when the race to develop a dependable, high-performance, pulsed nuclear
propulsion system was won, which would bring the typical Mars round-
trip down to somewhere around ten days. Although some unforeseen
difficulties had been encountered, which had delayed development of
such a drive well beyond the dates optimistically predicted in years
gone by, the various groups working feverishly around the world were
generally agreed that the goal was now in sight. That was the bonanza
that MCM was betting on. Thirty years ago, Halloran would have declared
flatly that such a coordination of Soviet and Western interests under a
private initiative was impossible. Now he was part of it. Or about to
be. . .
He found himself wondering again if the Vusilov who would be
meeting him could be the same Vusilov from bygone years. Possibly
the KGB had its own retirement problems, too. But in any case, after
all the months of wondering, it would be only a matter of minutes now
before he found out.
The shuttle nudged itself away from the docking port, and
Halloran experienced a strange series of sensations as it fell away
from the Mikbail Gorbachev, shedding weight as it decoupled from the
shipтАЩs rotational frame, and then accelerated into a curving trajectory
that would carry it across to the MARSMOS satellite.
тАЬMARSMOS has increased tenfold in size in the last six months,тАЭ
Byacheslav commented. тАЬYouтАЩll probably have more places to discover