"Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle - Lucifer ' s Hammer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

If it bothered Hamner it didn't show. He ambled toward the bar. Behind him Julia went to welcome
her most important guest, Senator Jellison, with his entourage. He always brought everyone,
administrative assistants as well as family. Tim Hamner's smile was blazing when he reached the
bar.

"Good evening, Mr. Hamner."

"Good it is. Tonight I'm walking on pink clouds. Congratulate me, Rodrigo, they're going to name a
comet after me!"

Michael Rodriguez, laying out glasses behind the bar, missed a beat. "A comet?"

"Right. Hamner Brown Comet. It's coming, Rodrigo, you can see it, oh, around June, give or take a
few weeks." Hamner took out the telegram and opened it with a snap.

"We will not see it from Los Angeles," Rodriguez laughed. "What may I serve you tonight?"

"Scotch rocks. You could see it. It could be as big as Halley's Comet." Hamner took the drink and
looked about. There was a group around George Sutter. The knot of people drew Tim like a magnet.
He clutched the telegram in one hand and his drink in another, as Julia brought the new guests
over and introduced them.

Senator Arthur Clay Jellison was built something like a brick, muscular rather than overweight. He
was bulky, jovial and blessed with thick white hair. He was photogenic as hell, and half the
people in the country would have recognized him. His voice sounded exactly as it did on TV:
resonant, enveloping, so that everything he said took on a mysterious importance.

Maureen Jellison, the Senator's daughter, had long, dark red hair and pale clear skin and a beauty
that would have made Tim Hamner shy on any other night; but when Julia Sutter turned to him and
(finally!) said, "What was that about a├С"

"Hamner Brown Comet" Tim waved the telegram. "Kitt Peak Observatory had confirmed my sighting!
It's a real comet, it's my comet, they're naming it after me!"

Maureen Jellison's eyebrows went up slightly. George Sutter drained his glass before asking the
obvious question. "Who's Brown?"

Hamner shrugged; his untasted drink slopped a little onto the carpet, and Julia frowned. "Nobody's
ever heard of him," Tim said. "But the International Astronomical Union says it was a simultaneous
sighting."



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"So what you own is half a comet," said George Sutter.

Tim laughed, quite genuinely. "The day you own half a comet, George, I'll buy all those bonds you