"Paul J. McAuley - Rats of the System" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

Well, his life might be insignificant, but he wasn't about to trust it to a dying girl with no combat
experience. He fingertip-swam to the stern of the pod, and opened a panel and rigged a manual cutout
before he climbed back inside. He had been working for six hours. He was exhausted and sweating hard
inside the p-suit, but he couldn't take it off because the pod's atmosphere had been vented and most of
its systems had been shut down, part of his plan to fool the Fanatic into thinking it was a dead hulk. The
interior was dark and cold. The lights either side of his helmet cast sharp shadows. Frost glistened on
struts exposed where he had stripped away paneling.

The scientist lay inside her sealed coffin, her half-ruined face visible through the little window. She looked
asleep, but when Carter maneuvered beside her she opened her good eye and looked at him. He
plugged in a patch cord and heard some kind of music, a simple progressions of riffs for percussion and
piano and trumpet and saxophone. The scientist said that it was her favorite piece. She said that she
wanted to listen to it one more time.

Carter said, "You should let the coffin put you to sleep. BeforeтАФ"

The scientist coughed wetly. Blood freckled the faceplate of her coffin. "Before I die."

"They gave me some science training before they put me on this mission, ma'am. Just tell me what to do."

"Quit calling me 'ma'am,'" the scientist said, and closed her good eye as a trumpet floated a long, lovely
line of melody above a soft shuffle of percussion. "Doesn't he break your heart? That's Miles Davis,
playing in New York hundreds of years ago. Making music for angels."

"It's interesting. It's in simple six/eight time, but the modal changesтАФ" The scientist was staring at Carter;
he felt himself blush and wondered if she could see it. He said, "I inherited perfect pitch from my mother.
She sang in an opera chorus before she married my father and settled down to raise babies and farm
vacuum organisms."

"Don't try to break it down," the scientist said. "You have to listen to the whole thing. The totality, it's
sublime. I'd rather die listening to this than die in hibernation."

"You're not goingтАФ"

"I've set down everything I remember about the work that was done before the attack. I'll add it to the
observations I make as we whip around the star and then squirt all the data to Keid. Maybe they can
make something useful of it, work out the Transcendent's tricks with the magnetic fields, the gravity
tethers, the rest of itтАж" She closed her eye, and breathed deeply. Fluid rattled in her lungs. She said
softly, as if to herself, "So many dead. We have to make their deaths worthwhile."

Carter had barely gotten to know his shipmates, recruited from all over, before they'd gone into
hibernation, but the scientist had lost good friends and colleagues.

He said, "The singleship is still accelerating."

"I know."

"It could catch us before we reach the star."

"Maybe your little trick will fool it."