"George R. R. Martin - WC 1 - Wild Cards" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

have heard what Colonel Wayne thought of the theory. The eggheads were getting
agitated too. Anyway, together Wayne and I managed to wrangle authorization to
fly the prisoner to Princeton. I figured a talk with Einstein couldn't do any
harm, and might do some good. His ship was impounded, and we'd gotten all we
were going to get from the man himself. Einstein was supposed to be the world's
greatest brain, maybe he could figure the guy out, right?
There are still those who say that the military is to blame for everything that
happened, but it's just not true. It's easy to be wise in hindsight, but I was
there, and I'll maintain to my dying day that the steps we took were reasonable
and prudent.



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The thing that really burns me is when they talk about how we did nothing to
track down that damned globe with the wild card spores. Maybe we made a mistake,
yeah, but we weren't stupid, we were covering our asses. Every damned military
installation in the country got a directive to be on the lookout for a crashed
spaceship that looked something like a seashell with running lights. Is it my
fucking fault that none of them took it seriously?
Give me credit for one thing, at least. When all hell broke loose, I had Tachyon
jetting back toward New York within two hours. I was in the seat behind him. The
redheaded wimp cried half the fucking way across the country. Me, I prayed for
Jetboy.


THIRTY MINUTES OVER BROADWAY! JETBOY'S LAST ADVENTURE!
by Howard Waldrop
Bonham's Flying Service of Shantak, New Jersey, was socked in. The small
searchlight on the tower barely pushed away the darkness of the swirling fog.
There was the sound of car tires on the wet pavement in front of Hangar 23. A
car door opened, a moment later it closed. Footsteps came to the Employees Only
door. It opened. Scoop Swanson came in, carrying his Kodak Autograph Mark II and
a bag of flashbulbs and film.
Lincoln Traynor raised up from the engine of the surplus P-40 he was overhauling
for an airline pilot who had got it at a voice-bid auction for $293. Judging
from the shape of the engine, it must have been flown by the Flying Tigers in
1940. A ball game was on the workbench radio. Line turned it down. "'Lo, Line,"
said Scoop.
"'Lo."
"No word yet?"
"Don't expect any. The telegram he sent yesterday said he'd be in tonight. Good
enough for me."
Scoop lit a Camel with a Three Torches box match from the workbench. He blew
smoke toward the Absolutely No Smoking sign at the back of the hangar. "Hey,
what's this?" He walked to the rear. Still in their packing cases were two long
red wing extensions and two 300-gallon teardrop underwing tanks. "When these get
here?"