"18 - The End of the Circle" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

The chamber had begun to vibrate. That in itself was nothing unusual. In fact, during the five years Exedore had been on-world he had known instances where the vibrations were strong enough to rattle the alloy walls and rumble data discs out of their holders. But the sudden tremor was more intense than any he had experienced.
"Another atmospheric cleansing?" the Zentraedi asked in a quavering voice. "A seasonal change? An internal overhaul, the upwelling of a new lake or the damming of a stream-send something, will you!"
Veidt had glided back to his station by the central data pillar, his high-collared cape a screen for projecbeam schematics, a dizzying light show of flashing alphanumeric analogues and equational abstracts.
"An intruder, perhaps," Exedore continued, his stubby hands spread atop leaping sheets of hard copy like some Ouija board reader. "An unannounced ship-"
"I heard you," Veidt sent with a sting. "It is none of those things. Something novel, unprecedented."
Exedore ceased his futile efforts to steady his work and with some difficulty swiveled to regard the strobing databanks of the Awareness, data scrolls and cards tattooing to the floor at his feet. The information traffic displayed was enough to render the Invid leave-taking a minor itch.
"What is it, Veidt?" Exedore pressed, a note of alarm in his voice. A deep-space view of Haydon IV advanced through the 3-D field of a projecbeam, a variegated ball in time-lapse motion. "Veidt," he repeated.
"Primary activation sequences have commenced," the Haydonite sent with curious detachment. "Atmospheric integrity is constant for the moment. Surface damage is projected to be well within accepted parameters. Casualties among offworlders are not expected to exceed a thousand."
"Casualties?" Exedore said; up on shaky legs, bulging eyes darting between Veidt and the projecbeam field.
Veidt rotated to face him, a lavender brightness pulsating from the center of his smooth forehead. "The crossing is achieved. The Event is occurred. Praise Haydon."
Careful not to be too literal, Exedore reminded himself. Praise Haydon could mean almost anything. "The Event?" he asked cautiously.
Veidt nodded. "Haydon IV is leaving orbit. Shortly, we will depart the Briz'dziki system entirely."
Exedore's mouth fell open. "Haydon," he muttered. "He has returned to our world."


CHAPTER THREE
The motion to leave Earth irradiated rather than leave it to the Invid Regis was carried by a narrow margin. Balloting was kept secret, and there has yet to be discovered a person-by-person breakdown of the vote. Of the ten members of the [Plenipotentiary] Council, there are believed to have been two abstentionsнfrom Stinson and Longchamps. Obstat, Huxley, and others have elsewhere indicated the basis of their individual decisions. Of the participating members of the REF command staff, seven voted in favor of using the Neutron-S missiles, five against. It is altogether ironic that the decision to irradiate Earth was arrived at in Tiresia, where, centuries before, the Robotech Masters had sentenced Optera to suffer a similar fate.
Ahmed Rashona, That Pass in the Night: The SDF-3 and the Mission to Tirol

Lisa dreamed a tunnel in the sky, a radiant corridor stretching timeless across the heavens. Warm to her hands and bare feet, secure and enfolding, redolent with aromas of spring and summer. At one end her father waved good-bye, a smashing figure in his United Earth Government tunic with its breast salad of ribbons and braid; at the other end was a patch of scudded sky that could have belonged only to once-upon-a-time Earth.
It occurred to her that she could not have been more than seventeen, returning to Macross Island after her first real leave. Was this carpeting below her, then? The warm glow the lights of some airport concourse or jetway?
But where were the flight attendants, then; where were her guides? And how could she hope to find her seat without a boarding pass?
She slapped the pockets of her long coat as she walked, panic gaining on her. The light ahead was almost too intense to behold, like the sun itself on a cloudless south Pacific afternoon when there was not a breeze in the world.
The hot sand was making her hurry along, but it was the voice she was responding to now. The panic evaporated, trailing behind her ghostly and diffuse, and the warmth returned. Her mother's voice, her arthritic hand waving in the light at the end of the corridor. Her guide, to be sure, a smile broadening as Lisa outran the years; the deaths and disappearances that ruined her garden. A child as she approached the light, Earth too remote to touch ...
I'm dead! she thoughtн
-as noise filled her up and air swelled her lungs, bringing renewed life to her pounding heart. A dream, she told herself, the recurrent one her mind reserved for hyperspace folds.
Everyone had them, those nightmares and visions, brief excursions to private heavens or hells. Space lace, some of the crew called it. With an ever-present out-of-body component, an after-life accompaniment.
Only this time she had died, and that had never happened before. Grief coursed through her, a profound sense of loss, a kind of terminal nostalgia. Had it been stirred by the dream? Or did it emanate from the nurturing other she had discovered within herself?
Roy was suddenly on her mind, her bright center in the universe, her barely five-year-old hero. The thought of having to open her eyes filled her with fear. But open them she would.
And the grief propagated.
The SDF-3 bridge was as dark and silent as a tomb. Sweat burst from her palms like splinters of ice.
"Lieutenant Toler," she said. "Mister Hakawa?"
"Here, sir," someone answered from a duty station behind the command chair. She called to the rest-Williamson, Price, Martino-and one by one they responded, reborn from dreams. Lisa flathanded the com-line stud built into the arm of the chair and called for Dr. Lang in engineering.
"All systems are down, Sir," said a voice in the darkness-Price, Lisa ventured correctly. "No response from any of the backups: It's like we're unplugged."
"Nonsense," Lisa returned. "We're obviously not weightless, Mister Price. And unless we've somehow defolded on Earth's surface, I'd hazard a guess some systems are operational."
"Yes, sir."
"Doesn't anyone keep a damn flashlight up here?" she said, cautiously feeling her way out of the chair. Off to her right she heard a pneumatic hiss, a tear of Velcro. "Everyone stay put," she called toward the sound. "We're still on full alert, gentlemen. Besides, I don't want anyone walking into a bulkhead. "She directed her voice starboard, toward Toler's station beneath the threat board. "Mister Toler, you're the youngest among us. How's your vision?"
"Better than perfect, sir," Toler told her, a crack in his voice on the last word.
"Do you think you can make your way to the hatch and engage the override?"
"With my eyes closed, sir."
Everyone laughed, and the tension eased somewhat. "Yes, well, you can keep your eyes open, Lieutenant. This isn't a test of your agility. I just want to know if the whole ship's in this fix."
"I understand, sir."
Lisa heard Toler's chair swivel. A few moments later came the low thud of retracting bolts. The air stirred as the hatch slid open and the sound of half a dozen voices drifted in from the operations room. Toler and someone else made startled sounds. "What happened?" Lisa asked.
A man's voice growled: "Who is that?"
"Lieutenant Toler. Who's that?"
"Commander Forsythe, Lieutenant. Stand aside."
"Sir!" Toler snapped.
Lisa heard a hollow meeting of flesh and bone and a followнup wince of pain. "Damn, boy," her bald-headed exec said, "you don't have to salute me!"
Just then the emergency lights came up, banks at a time, red and somber throughout the bridge. A slight shudder swept through the ship, and Klaxons wailed midnote, signaling battle stations.
"That's more like it," Lisa enthused. "Showing up crippled would send one hell of a message to the Regis."