"Kay Kenyon -The Seeds of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kenyon Kay)

within Quarantine Section: giant, exotic growths, the baobabs of other worlds; or delicate
what-passed-for-ferns, or the merest alien fuzz in a petri dish. The universe produced plant life in
abundance. Some of it was Earthlike, variations on the themes of leaf and chlorophyll, pistil and stamen.
Some of it was a lethal variation. These died a quiet death in Quarantine. And even these were mourned,
having traveled down the aeons, down the tracts of space to replenish the greying Earth. You dove for
pearls. And some of them you threw back.
She passed the Leery Room, in Free Section. Inside, Clio knew, was housed the biggest catch in Space
Recon's twelve-year history. The room itself had become a habitat, with dirt paths winding through a
lowland rain forest, both familiar and strange. It was green; it had things that might be called trees, a few
soaring almost to the thirty-meter-high ceiling. There were groundcovers, vines and flowers. The flowers
were the strangest, their stalks kaleidoscope tubes of color, their tips sprays of leaves.
The haul was from Leery, a planet that had been discovered three years ago, just ten years after Sri
Sarvepalli Vandarthanan had
described the mechanics of time travel. Leery was the haul they had dreamed of; when it emerged from
quarantine on Vanda Station the previous year, the crew doubled their bonus. Up until Leery, Recon found
minor caches on minor planets; this was the jackpot. Leery's planet had passed this way three million years
before Earth, and now the vast rotation of the galaxy brought Earth into the vicinity Leery had once known.
A ship went back and got the haul. And the crew retired on that bonusтАФ except for the Dive pilot, who
couldn't, by contract, retire.
No matter. He burned out two Dives later anyway, in the manner of Dive pilots, brief creatures that
they were.
Clio found her assigned cubicle in crew quarters and hit the bed, still dressed. She cut the lights, waited
for sleep to take her.
After a few minutes she jabbed at the console, opened the viewport, and watched the stars on
nightside. The port window clouded dark as her cabin turned toward the sun, then cleared again to display
the nightside stars. Count the cycles, the rotations, lose count, cycle off to sleep.
She lay watching the stars, watching for shooting stars, though none existed here, watching like a child
on her back in the grass. Summer nights in North Dakota, when Mom and Elsie finally went to bed and all
the house lights were out, you could see those stars plummet down, sometimes in a long swift drive like
your best shooter marble racing into the playing circle.
She woke with a start. Ellison Brisher was sitting on the bunk next to hers. Ellison Brisher. Christ.
"Know how to knock?" She struggled up onto an elbow, turned on the light.
"Always a pleasure to see you, Clio. Even when you're in a bad mood. " Brisher was wearing a
one-piece grey jumpsuit, lending him an elephantine look. He peered at her from tiny eyes.
Clio sat up. "What time is it?"
"Nine. Breakfast is over. You hungry?"
"No. Thanks. "
His eyes flicked to the zipper on her togs, where it was pulled down from her throat. She zipped up.
Cocked her head at him. Get to the point.
"This Crippen affair is a bad business, Clio, bad business. The Bureau's called a hearing. You're the
main witness, I'm afraid. Chocolate fizz?" He pointed a roll of fizzes at her.
"I'm the main witness? What about Russo?"
He shrugged, popped a fizz in his mouth. "Ah yes, Captain Russo. We'll question her too. Good idea.
You're grounded, by the way. " He leaned closer, thrusting out the fizzes. "Sure?"
She stared at his round, tranquil face. "You can't ground me, Ellison. You need me. "
"Well, we all have our fantasies, Clio. About being needed, et cetera. " He stood slowly, squeezing out
a long breath. "I gave up on that fantasy a long time ago. That's why I'm in charge and you're not. "
Clio kept her face neutral. "That all?"
"No. We've got a new man on crew. Want you to meet him. Name's Peter van der Zee. Goes by Zee.
Astrophysicist. Replacing Ahrens. "