"Clash By Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moore C. L)

Bienne saluted halfheartedly and turned away. Scott went back to his own booth. Jeana had already gathered her handbag and gloves and was applying lip juice.

She met his eyes calmly enough.

'I'll be at the apartment, Brian. Luck.'

He kissed her briefly, conscious of a surging excitement at the.prospect of a new venture. Jeana understood his emotion. She gave him a quick, wry smile, touched his hair lightly, and rose. They went out into the gay tumult of the ways.

Perfumed wind blew into Scott's face. He wrinkled his nose disgustedly. During carnival seasons the Keeps were less pleasant to the Free Companions than otherwise; they felt more keenly the gulf that lay between them and the undersea dwellers. Scott pushed his way through the crowd and took

Jeana across the ways to the centre fast-speed strip. They found seats.

At a clover-leaf intersection Scott left the girl, heading toward Administration, the cluster of taller buildings in the city's centre. The technical and political headquarters were centred here, except for the laboratories, which were in the suburbs near the base of the Dome. There were a few small test-domes a mile or so distant from the city, but these were used only for more precarious experiments. Glancing up, Scott was reminded of the catastrophe that had unified science into something like a freemasonry. Above him, hanging without gravity over a central plaza, was the globe of the Earth, half shrouded by the folds of a black plastic pall. In every Keep on Venus there was a similar ever-present reminder of the lost mother planet.

Scott's gaze went up farther, to the Dome, as though he could penetrate the impervium and the mile-deep layer of water and the clouded atmosphere to the white star that hung in space, one quarter as brilliant as the Sun. A star -all that remained of Earth, since atomic power had been unleashed there two centuries ago. The scourge had spread like flame, melting continents and levelling mountains. In the libraries there were wire-tape pictorial records of the Holocaust. A religious cult - Men of the New Judgment -had sprung up, and advocated the complete destruction of science; followers of that dogma still existed here and there. But the cult's teeth had been drawn when technicians unified, outlawing experiments with atomic power forever, making use of that force punishable by death, and permitting no one to join their society without taking the Minervan Oath.

'-to work for the ultimate good of mankind . . . taking all precaution against harming humanity and science . . . requiring permission from those in authority before undertaking any experiment involving peril to the race ... remembering always the extent of the trust placed in us and remembering forever the death of the mother planet through misuse of knowledge-'

The Earth. A strange sort of world it must have been, Scott thought. Sunlight, for one thing, unfiltered by the cloud layer. In the old days, there had been few unexplored areas left on Earth. But here on Venus, where the continents had not yet been conquered - there was no need, of course, since everything necessary to life could be produced under the Domes- here on Venus, there was still a frontier. In the Keeps, a highly specialized social culture. Above the surface, a primeval world, where only the Free Companions had their fortresses and navies- the navies for fighting, the forts to house the technicians who provided the latter-day sinews of war, science instead of money. The Keeps tolerated visits from the Free Companions, but would not offer them headquarters, so violent the feeling, so sharp the schism, in the public mind, between war and cultural progress.

Under Scott's feet the sliding way turned into an escalator, carrying him into the Administration Building. He stepped to another way which took him to a lift, and, a moment or two later, was facing the door-curtain bearing the face of President Dane Crosby of Montana Keep.

Crosby's voice said, 'Come in, captain,' and Scott brushed through the curtain, finding himself in a medium-sized room with muralled walls and a great window overlooking the city. Crosby, a white-haired, thin figure in blue silks, was at his desk. He looked like a tired old clerk out of Dickens, Scott thought suddenly, entirely undistinguished and ordinary. Yet Crosby was one of the great sociopoliticians on Venus.

Cine Rhys, leader of Doone's Free Companions, was sitting in a relaxer, the apparent antithesis of Crosby. All the moisture in Rhys' body seemed to have been sucked out of him years ago by ultraviolet actinic, leaving a mummy of brown leather and whipcord sinew. There was no softness in the man. His smile was a grimace. Muscles lay like wire under the swarthy cheeks.

Scott saluted. Rhys waved him to a relaxer. The look of subdued eagerness in the cinc's eyes was significant - an eagle poising himself, smelling blood. Crosby sensed that, and a wry grin showed on his pale face.

'Every man to his trade,' he remarked, semi-ironically. Tsuppose I'd be bored stiff if I had too long a vacation. But you'll have quite a battle on your hands this time. Cine Rhys.'

Scott's stocky body tensed automatically. Rhys glanced at him.

'Virginia Keep is attacking, captain. They've hired the Helldivers - Flynn's outfit.'

There was a pause. Both Free Companions were anxious to discuss the angles, but unwilling to do so in the presence of a civilian, even the president of Montana Keep. Crosby rose.

'The money settlement's satisfactory, then?'

Rhys nodded. 'Yes, that's all right. I expect the battle will take place in a couple of days. In the neighbourhood of Venus Deep, at a rough guess.'

'Good. I've a favour to ask, so if you'll excuse me for a few minutes, I'll-' He left the sentence unfinished and went out through the door-curtain. Rhys offered Scott a cigarette.

'You get the implications, captain - the Helldivers?'

'Yes, sir. Thanks. We can't do it alone.'

'Right. We're short on manpower and armament both. And the Helldivers recently merged with O'Brien's Legion, after O'Brien was killed in that polar scrap. They're a strong outfit, plenty strong. Then they've got their speciality -submarine attack. I'd say we'll have to use H-plan 7.'

Scott closed his eyes, remembering the files. Each Free Company kept up-to-date plans of attack suited to the merits of every other Company of Venus. Frequently revised as new advances were made, as groups merged, and as the balance of power changed on each side, the plans were so detailed that they could be carried into action at literally a moment's notice. H-plan 7, Scott recalled, involved enlisting the aid of the Mob, a small but well-organized band of Free Companions led by Cine Tom Mendez.