"Laurence M. Janifer - Count Down" - читать интересную книгу автора (Janifer Laurence M)

"Damn it," Freeman cut in, "you don't have to stick to the public manner here. You know that."
The emperor blinked. "Minister," he began, very slowly, "there are moments when one nearly
understands the reputation you once hadтАФthe reputation one had thought you had long lived down. Such
impatienceтАФ" He made a vague gesture with one hand.
Freeman took a deep breath. Old Mildness-Whenever-Possible. "My most sincere apologies, Sire,"
he said, most quietly. "I have been so frustrated by recent events that even the basic forms of politeness
at times drop from me. I most sincerely beg your pardon."
Murin, at Freeman's right, made a strangled sound and managed to sit still. Walther IV nodded with
elegant, precisely calculated graciousness.
"Very well, Minister. I had hoped for an enjoyable chat . . . but, then, of course, one must be
businesslike, even when Imperial, mustn't one? And, as you have requested this audience, I shall ask you
to state our subjectтАФwhich, I take it, is somehow connected with your recent . . . ah . . . frustrations?"
Freeman waited for a polite second and nodded. "If Your Imperial Majesty pleaseтАФ" he began.
"No need to overdo the manner," Walther put in quietly.
Freeman shrugged. "I'd like you to hear something," he said. "This is a copy of a tape taken for
record at the Space Center. We've been going through a good deal of material, and perhaps thisтАФto
provide background and an emotional settingтАФwill be of use."
The emperor appeared to hesitate; then, with a wave of one thin hand, he said: "OhтАФvery well, Dall.
Go ahead."
Freeman reached to the small box on the floor at his left, and touched two buttons. There was a
small, continuing hiss. "The first voice belongs to Richard Hamsun," he said, "our selected pilot for the
shoot to Thoth. The second belongs to a Dr. Beirin Eberhardt, the acting head of the Psychological
Section there. The occasion was one of the scheduled `unofficial chats' with psychological personnel."
"I see," the emperor said. Nothing could have been more noncommittal than those two sounds.
Suddenly a harsh voice began to speak in the room. "How did it start?"
"This business about thirteen?" Eberhardt's much smoother, older voice asked.
"All thisтАФsuperstition," Hamsun said. "Suddenly it's all over the place. How did it start out?" There
was a brief pause.
"The men at the Center," Freeman put in hastily, "know that curiosity is considered a healthy trait,
when allied with safeguarding traits; they occasionally make a point of displaying it."
"Of course," the emperor said, and Freeman snorted to himself: what need was there to explain the
obvious to a politician who worked at his job all the timeтАФnot part-time, only when chosen for the
Council, like semiprofessional Dall Freeman?
"No one," Eberhardt was saying reflectively, "really knows. Though of course Dr. Allerton's work
has brought a good deal of it to public attention withтАФahтАФa certain amount of force. His diggings and
subsequent research into the days of the ancients . . . well, of course it's been established that the
superstition didn't spring out of the Clean Slate War itselfтАФthough the myth that followed it, the 'thirteen
hydrogen bombs,' gave it . . . ah . . . a new lease on life."
"Myth?"

"The truth is," Eberhardt said in an oracular tone, "that no one has any clear idea how many such ...
ah . . . devices were set off. I doubt whether even Dr. Allerton's researches will tell us that in any certain
way. ButтАФthe superstition long predates the War, and was quite common among the ancients. They had
begun the exploration of interplanetary space, you will recallтАФand when accidents of a serious nature
developed during the Moonflight which one 'country' had numbered thirteen, the significance of the
numberтАФto such persons as owned to the old superstition, of courseтАФwas naturally much increased."
"I can see that," Hamsun said. He had no chance to say more; Eberhardt was sailing straight on.
"One line of research, duplicating the principles involved in the hydrogen-bombing techniques
themselves," the psychologist said cheerfully, "and then attempting to fix very precisely the amount of
residual radioactivity in ordinarily .. . ah . . . stable materials . . . as well as other techniques . . . all this