"Evan Innes - America 2040 02 - Golden World" - читать интересную книгу автора (Innes Evan)

Cat at first led the way, soaring in the nulgrav, zero gravity. The spin had been taken off the ship so that
there was zero gravity in all sections now. Cat had learned to flatten its body into a soaring contour, but
Max, lacking CatтАЩs abilities, lengthened his stride, opened the door to his quarters, followed Grace
inside, then used his foot to deftly block the robot. Cat scratched on the metal of the door for a few
seconds and then, rejected, slunk off down the corridor, its body turning black with sadness.

The shipтАЩs boozery made a decent gin. MaxтАЩs quarters, in contrast to his person, were tidy. He mixed,
handed Grace her covered cup and straw. HeтАЩd used a liberal quantity of the fresh orange juice squeezed
from fruit grown in Amando KwaitтАЩs on-board gardens. Max sipped and then exhaled noisily. His smile
showed no sign of tension as he looked at Grace. She was still standing.

тАЬYou gonna sit down?тАЭ Max asked.

тАЬI think IтАЩll sit down,тАЭ Grace said. SheтАЩd learned during the past two and a half years not to be put out
by what some considered bluntness on MaxтАЩs part. She took the chair that served as the acceleration
couch.

тАЬYou gonna sit down or stand up all day?тАЭ she asked, humor lighting her brown eyes.

Max growled. He had never had time to get married. He had been a brilliant young man in a hurry, and
heтАЩd hurried himself right into the most fascinating work, helping to design and test the components of the
huge space stations that had been lifted into space on bellowing rockets. When he had been called to
California to work with a young genius named Harry Shaw, heтАЩd thought his life was complete and could
never get better. Now he had hopes that his lifewould get better because heтАЩd met a woman named
Grace Monroe.

Intellectually she was superior to most men, and MaxтАЩs initial response to her had been almost openly
hostile; he was the kind of genius who felt, without admitting it to. himself, that one genius around any
given installation was enough. At first heтАЩd felt that just because Grace was the topmost authority on the
new breed of thinking computers, which utilized amino-acid units for data storage, it didnтАЩt give her the
right to come messing around in his engineering areas and, by God, certainly not the right to turn her eerie
menagerie of robots loose on his ship.

Max prided himself on being an opinionated man, but he was not so self-centered that he didnтАЩt realize
that an opinionated man does not hold opinions, they hold him. Change came hard for him, but it had
taken Grace only a few weeks to begin to break through to the sensitive, warm human being under Max
RosenтАЩs outer crust.

There in his quarters, waiting out a half-hour hold so that the light would be right for pictures, GraceтАЩs
mental powers were not foremost in MaxтАЩs mind. He saw a mature, lovely woman sitting on his
acceleration couch, her classic face in repose. He swallowed, let his thoughts surface, thoughts that heтАЩd
been indulging in only in privacy: He liked looking at her. He liked hearing her talk. He liked being around
her. He liked working with her. She had proven to be a good team worker. She challenged him, all right,
but he was a man who liked challenges. The skull sessions they had during slow times were, to Max,
more stimulating than good booze.

Heknew that the mass of weight that was theSpirit of America was going to behave and sit itself down all
in one piece, but there was just the odd chanceтАФ And heтАЩd never even tried to tell her how he felt about
her.