"Who's Afraid Of Wolf 359" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

She blinked again. УItТs on the gossip channels already.Ф I was about to give a heated explanation of why that time-wasting rubнbish wasnТt among the enhancements inside my skull, thank you very much, when the goons turned up, sent the dogs skulking reluctantly away, and took me in. They had the tape across my mouth before I had a chance to ask the stallkeeper her name, let alone her number. Not, as it turned out, that I could have done much with it even if I had. But it would have been polite.

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The charge was attempting to willfully evade the civil penalties for adultery. I was outraged.

УBastards!Ф I shouted, screwing up the indictment and dashing it to the floor of my cell. УI thought polygamy was illegal!Ф

УIt is,Ф said my attorney, stooping to pick up the flimsy, Уin civilized jurisнdictions.Ф He smoothed it out. УBut this is Long Station One. The Tycoon has privileges.Ф

УThatТs barbaric,Ф I said.

УItТs a relic of the Moon Caves,Ф he said.

I stared at him. УNo it isnТt,Ф I said. УI donТt rememberФЧI caught myself just in timeЧУreading about anything like that.Ф

He tapped a slight bulge on his cranium. УThatТs what it says here. Argue with the editors, not with me.Ф

УAll right,Ф I said. A second complaint rose to the top of the stack. УShe never said anything about being married!Ф

УDid you ask her?Ф

УOf course not,Ф I said. УThat would have been grossly impolite. In the circumstances, it would have implied that she was contemplating adultery.Ф

УI see.Ф He sighed. УIТll never understand the... ethics, if thatТs the word, of you young gallants.Ф

I smiled at that.

УHowever,Ф he went on, Уthat doesnТt excuse you for ignorance of the lawЧФ

УHow was I to know the Tycoon was married to his wenches?Ф

УЧor custom. There is an orientation pack, you know. All arrivals are deemed to have read it.Ф

СУDeemed,ТФ I said. УNow, thereТs a word that just about sums up everyнthing thatТs wrong aboutЧФ

УYou can forgo counsel, if you wish.Ф

I raised my hands. УNo, no. Please. Do your best.Ф

He did his best. A week later, he told me that he had got me off with a fine plus compensation. If I borrowed money to pay the whole sum now, it would take two hundred and fifty-seven years to pay off the debt. I had other plans for the next two hundred and fifty-seven years. Instead, I negoнtiated a one-off advance fee to clean up Wolf 359, and used that to pay the court and the Tycoon. The experimental civilization around Wolf 359Чa limited companyЧhad a decade earlier gone into liquidation, taking ten billion shareholders down with it. Nobody knew what it had turned into. Whatever remained out there had been off limits ever since, and would be for centuries to comeЧunless someone went in to clean it up.

In a way, the Wolf 359 situation was the polar opposite of what the Civil Worlds had hitherto had to deal with, which was habitats, networks, someнtimes whole systems going into exponential intelligence enhancementЧ what we called a fast burn. We knew how to deal with a fast burn. Ignore it for five years, and it goes away. Then send in some heavily firewalled snoop robots and pick over the wreckage for legacy hardware. Sometimes you get a breakout, where some of the legacy hardware reboots and starts getting ideas above its station, but thatТs a job for the physics team.

A civilizational implosion was a whole different volley of nukes. Part of the problem was sheer nervousness. We were too close historically to what had happened on the MoonТs primary to be altogether confident that we wouldnТt somehow be sucked in ourselves. Another part of it was simple economics: the job was too long-term and too risky to be attractive, given all the other opportunities available to anyone who wasnТt completely desнperate. Into that vacancy for someone who was completely desperate, I wish I could say I stepped. In truth, I was pushed.

Even I was afraid of Wolf 359.

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