"Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 02 - The Long Run" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moran Daniel Keys)

You're Trent."
"I am?"
The young man was conservatively dressed: a gray jacket and black
pants, and a white silk shirt that shone brilliantly even in the dim light
from L'Express's outdoor glowfloats. He wore immaculately clean white
running shoes; there was a single flat ruby stud in the lobe of his left ear.
Trent's temples, where an inskin InfoNet link might have been implanted,
were merely smooth skin. His hair was sandy blond, cut short, and he
either wore no makeup or had turned it off.
He wore flat black sunglasses though they were hardly necessary.
It was ten minutes after six o'clock.
"You're younger than I'd expected," said the middle-aged man who had
said his name was Jerry Jackson. On the phone Trent had not noticed it,
but in person his voice held the faint but definite traces of a Southern
accent.
"Am I?"
"And you're late," the man said. Despite the air, heavy with ozone as
though a thunderstorm were about to strike, Jackson had taken a table
outside beneath the gray-black skies, on the balcony level overlooking the
eternally crowded streets.
"Ten minutes late . . ." Trent shrugged. "Ten minutes older."
He seated himself across the table from Jerry Jackson. To the waitbot
which had led him to the table he said, "A pot of coffee. With cream, no
sugar."
The waitbot paused, then said mildly, in the rich baritone characteristic
of opera singers, newsdancers and politicians, "Monsieur, that item is not
on the menu."
"Waiter, please," said Trent. They both waited while the waitbot rolled
away out of listening range.
L'Express sat on the western edge of what had once been the Brooklyn
Navy Yard, and was now one of the most expensive residential areas in all
the Patrol Sectors. From where he sat Trent could see to the northwest, on
the other side of the East River, the scarlet sparks of spacecraft rising and
descending at Unification Spaceport in lower Manhattan. The dull, distant
boom of craft breaking through the sound barrier touched him every
twenty seconds or so.
Eight spacescrapers reared high above the skyline, eight three- to
five-kilometer-tall buildings; two of them did nothing but house
Peaceforcers and the babychasers from the Ministry of Population
Control: the Left and Right Hands of the Devil Himself, Secretary-General
Charles Eddore.
Trent said, "How did you get referred to me?"
Jackson said smoothly, "You're in the Directory."
"That wasn't the question."
Jerry Jackson was drinking something cold and green, with crushed ice
in it. He wore an exquisitely tailored blue pinstripe suit. A brushed
aluminum attach├й case stood upright beside his chair. The cuffs of his
sleeves were fastened European style, folded back upon themselves.