"John Morressy - Rimrunners Home" - читать интересную книгу автора (Morressy John)

"I confess I've never looked at it that way," Dalton said. Vanderhorst. felt a
nudge in his ribs and turned to see Korry, looking agonized, close at his side.
"It's unfair for me to monopolize the guest of honor. We'll talk again,
Captain," Dalton said, moving off smoothly, the Fossets in her wake.

When they were out of earshot, Jemma said in a low, furious voice, "Are you
trying to destroy the program?"

"You wanted me to talk to Dalton. I talked."

"Yes, but the way you talked. ..."

"I don't like her. Or her lapdog. They're posturing frauds. If anyone in any
government dared to cut the program and an asteroid the size of a golfball
landed in the middle of the Gobi Desert, they'd be lynched. They know it, you
know it, I know it. But they play at being important and I hate them for it."

"Van, you mustn't --"

"I told you I'm not good at this."

"What was it you called Fosset?" Korry asked.

"Lobie. You called him a lobie. What's that?" Jemma demanded.

"Before your time. Forget it."

She frowned and looked at Korry. He raised his brows and shook his head.
Abruptly, Jemma's eyes widened. She looked at Vanderhorst in horror and said,
"That's what they used to call lobotomized social offenders! And the kids who
imitated them, the lobie gangs. Vandals and criminals!"

"It fits Fosset. Maybe Dalton, too. Now let's drop it. I've done my part and I
want a drink." He walked away and left them standing by themselves.

The lodge at Silverhill offered a prospect that Vanderhorst had dreamed of as he
rode beyond the farthest orbit of the solar system. Soft hills, flower-carpeted,
fell away to a crystal lake. Beyond them rose the mountains, green-skirted and
crowned in white. The skies were clean. No cities, no houses, no other works of
man were to be seen. This was the Earth he dreamed of in the black void beyond
Pluto, the planet he feared for and considered worth the risk of his life and
his sanity.
Popular belief had downside rimrunners abandoning themselves to debauchery; and
indeed, while aloft Vanderhorst sometimes spun lurid fantasies of his coming
Earthtime. But on his last two returns, he found that what he wanted most was
time to sit back and look, to walk without boundaries and breathe unrecycled
air. Thanks to eighty years' accumulated wealth, he could patronize one of the
few unspoiled areas in North America.

Vanderhorst had learned of Silverhill on his last return, and found that it