"Keith Laumer - Future Imperfect" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laumer Keith)

merry tune." I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, not gently. "Who was he?" I was snarling between
my teeth now, letting the shock work itself out in good healthy anger.
"You. . . . wouldn't understand. Wouldn't believeтАФ"
"Try me!" I gripped harder. "Spit it out, sailor! What's it all about? Who are you? What were
you doing here? Why was he after you? Why did he shoot at me? Who was he?"
"All right," he was gasping, showing his teeth. His face was that of a mummy who had died in
agony. I'll tell you. But you won't believe me."
***
"It was almost a year ago," he said. "I was on satellite duty on Sheppard Platform when the
first quakes hit. We saw it all from up thereтАФthe smoke on the day side and the thousand-mile fires
at night. They gave the order to evacuate the stationтАФI never knew why."
"Pressure from Moscow," I told him. "They thought we were doing it."
"Sure. Everybody panicked. I guess we did, too. Our shuttle made a bad landing southwest of
Havana. I was one of three survivors. Spent a few days at Key West; then they flew me in to
Washington. Hell of a sight. Ruins, fires, the Potomac out of its banks, meandering across
Pennsylvania, the Washington Monument sticking up out of twenty feet of water, the capitol dome
down, a baby volcano building up where Mount Vernon used to beтАФ"
"I know all that. Who was the man I shot?"
He ignored me. "I gave my testimony. No signs of enemy activity. Just nature busting loose
like nineteen hells. There was some professor thereтАФhe had all the facts. A hell of an uproar when
he sprang his punch line, senators jumping up and yelling, M.P.'s everywhere, old Admiral
Conaghy red in the faceтАФ"
"You're wandering," I reminded him. "Get to the point."
"The crust of the earth was slipping, he told them. Polnac, that was his name. Some kind of big
shot from Hungary. The South Polar ice cap building up, throwing the machinery out of kilter.
Eccentric thrust started the lithosphere sliding. He said it had slipped more than four miles then.
Estimated it would hit an equilibrium at about a thousand. Take about two yearsтАФ"
"I read the papersтАФor I did while there were any papers to read."
"Conaghy got the floor. Hit the South Pole with everything we had, he said; bust up the icecap.
He scribbled on the back of an envelope and said fifty super-H's would do the job."
"They'd have loaded the atmosphere with enough radioactivity to sterilize the planet."
"No, might've worked. Propaganda. Scared of the Russkis, what they'd do. I missed out on the
rest. They cleared the hearing room then. But I heard rumors later they'd put it to Koprovin and he
said that at the first sign of a nuclear launch he'd hit us with his whole menagerie." The hollow eyes
closed; a dry-looking tongue touched blackish lips. He swallowed hard. Then his eyes flew open
again and he went on: "That's when Hayle came up with his plan. Secret force to be dispatched to
the Pole, loaded with modified nuclear generator plant gear. There was a lot of resistance, but they
bought it. He picked me to go with him."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Vice-Admiral Hayle was lost on a routine orbital mission," I told
him. "I never heard of any polar expedition."
"That's rightтАФthat was the cover story. Cosmic Top Secret. Operation Defrost, we called it."
"Sounds as though you were on the inside."
He nodded, a weak twitch. All his strength was going into his story. "We sailed from San Juan
on Christmas Day. Two deep-water battlewagons, Maine and Pearl."
"They were lost with the submarine station at Guam."
"No. We had 'em. A dozen smaller ships, three thousand men. This was a major effort. New
York was already gone, Boston, Philly, most of the East Coast, San Diego, CorpusтАФyou remember
how it was. Blue water over Panama. Hell, we spotted bodies floating a thousand miles at sea after
the tornadoes. Surface covered with floating pumice as far south as Tierra del Fuego; new
volcanoes there that made a glow in the sky six hundred miles east.