"Larry Niven - ARM UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

Except for the computer terminal. That was like a little womb, with a recline chair inside a 360-degree wraparound holovision screen and enough banked controls to fly the damn thing to Alpha Centaurus.
The secrets there must be in that computer! But I didnТt try to use
it. WeТd have to send an ARM programmer to break whatever failsafe codes Sinclair had put in the memory banks.
The truck arrived. We dragged SinclairТs legacy up the stairs to the roof in one piece. The parts were sturdily mounted on their frame, and the stairs were wide and not too steep.
I rode home in the back of the truck. Studying the generator. That massive piece of silver had something of the look of Bird in FlightЧ a triangle operated on by a topology student, with wires at what were still the corners. I wondered if it was the heart of the machine, or just a piece of misdirection. Was I really riding with an interstellar drive? Sinclair could have started that rumor himself, to cover . . . whatever this was. Or . . . there was no law against his working two projects simultaneously.
I was looking forward to BeraТs reaction.
Jackson Bera came upon us moving it through the halls of ARM headquarters. He trailed along behind us. Nonchalant. We pulled the machine into the main laboratory and started checking it against the holos IТd taken, in case something had been jarred loose. Bera leaned against the doorjamb, watching us, his eyes gradually losing interest, until he seemed about to go to sleep.
Jackson Bera was a big dark man crowned with a carefully tended sphere of puffy black hair. IТd met him three years ago when I returned from the asteroids and joined the ARM. Maybe heТd wondered why I kept staring at his hair. But a Belter who wore his hair in that fashion would have needed a spacesuit helmet the size of a cannibalТs cooking pot.
HeТd been twenty then, and two years an ARM; but his father and grandfather had both been ARMs. Much of my training had come from Bera. And as I learned to hunt men who hunt other men, I had watched what it was doing to him.
An ARM needs empathy. He needs the ability to piece together a picture of the mind of his prey. But Bera had too much empathy. I remember his reaction when Kenneth Graham suicided with a battery-operated droudЧa single killing surge of current through the plug in his skull and down the wire to the pleasure center of his brain. Bera had been twitchy for weeks. And the Anubis case, early last year. When we realized what the man had done, Bera had been close to killing him on the spot. I wouldnТt have blamed him.
Last year Bera had had enough. HeТd gone into the technical end of the business. His days of hunting organleggers were finished. He was now running the ARM laboratory.
He had to want to know what this oddball contraption was. I kept waiting for him to ask, and he watched, faintly smiling. Finally it dawned on me. He thought it was a practical joke, something IТd cobbled together for his own discomfiture.
I said, УBera . . .У
And he looked at me brightly and said, УHey, man, what is it?Ф
УYou ask the most embarrassing questions.Ф
УRight, I can understand your feeling that way, but what is it? I love it, itТs neat, but what is this that you have brought me?Ф
I told him all I knew, such as it was. When I finished, he said, УIt doesnТt sound much like a new space drive.Ф
УOho, you heard that too, did you? No, it doesnТt. Unless . . .У IТd been wondering since I first saw it. УMaybe itТs supposed to accelerate a fusion explosion. YouТd get greater efficiency in a fusion drive.Ф
УNope. They get better than ninety percent now, and that widget looks heavy.Ф He reached to touch the bent silver triangle, gently, with long, tapering fingers. УHuh. Well, weТll dig out the answers.Ф
УGood luck. IТm going back to SinclairТs place.Ф
УWhy? The action is here.Ф Often enough heТd heard me talking wistfully of joining an interstellar colony. He must know how IТd feel about a better drive for the interstellar slowboats.
УItТs like this,Ф I said. УWeТve got the generator, but we donТt know anything about it. We might wreck it. IТm going to have a whack at finding someone who knows something about SinclairТs generator.Ф
УMeaning?Ф
УWhoever tried to steal it. SinclairТs killer.Ф
УIf you say so.Ф But he looked dubious. He knew me too well. He said, УI understand thereТs a mother hunt in the offing.Ф
УOh?Ф
He smiled. УJust a rumor. You guys are lucky. When my dad first joined, the business of the ARM was mostly mother hunts. The organleggers hadnТt really got organized yet, and the Fertility Laws were new. If we hadnТt enforced them, nobody would have obeyed them at all.Ф
УSure, and people threw rocks at your father. Bera, those days are gone.Ф
УThey could come back. Having children is basic.Ф
УBera, I did~not join the ARM to hunt unlicensed parents.Ф I waved and left before he could answer. I could do without the call to duty from Bera, who was through with hunting men and mothers.
IТd had a good view of the Rodewald Building, dropping toward the roof this morning. I had a good view now, from my commandeered taxi. This time I was looking for escape paths.
There were no balconies on SinclairТs floors, and the windows were flush to the side of the building. A cat burglar would have trouble with them. They didnТt look like theyТd open.
I tried to spot the cameras Ordaz had mentioned as the taxi dropped toward the roof. I couldnТt find them. Maybe they were mounted in the elms.
Why was I bothering? I hadnТt joined the ARM to chase mothers or machinery or common murderers. IТd joined to pay for my armЧ my right arm, after it had been sheared clean to the shoulder in an industrial accident in the Belt.
I hadnТt had the money to buy a new arm from the Belt organ banks. IТd come back to Earth because my citizensТ medical insurance would pay for it there. Later IТd found that my new arm was not part of some condemned criminal. It had reached the World Organ Bank Facility via a captured organleggerТs cache. Some honest citizen had died unwillingly on a city slidewalk, and now his arm was part of me.
IТd joined the ARM to hunt organleggers.
The ARM doesnТt deal in murder per Se. The machine was out of my hands now. A murder investigation wouldnТt keep me out of a mother hunt. And IТd never met the girl. I knew nothing of her, beyond the, fact that she was where a killer ought to be.
Was it just that she was pretty?
Poor Janice. When she woke up . . . For a solid month IТd wakened to that same stunning shock, the knowledge that my right arm was gone.
The taxi settled. Vaipredo was waiting below.
I speculated. Cars werenТt the only things that flew. But anyone flying one of those tricky ducted-fan flycycles over a city, where he could fall on a pedestrian, wouldnТt have to worry about a murder charge. TheyТd feed him to the organ banks regardless. And anything that flew would have left traces anywhere but on the landing pad itself. It would crush a rosebush or a bonsai tree or be flipped over by an elm.
The taxi took off in a whisper of air.
Valpredo was grinning at me. УThe Thinker. WhatТs on your mind?Ф
УI was wondering if the killer could have come down on the carport roof.Ф
He turned to study the situation. УThere are two cameras mounted on the edge of the roof. If his vehicle was light enough, sure, he could land there, and the cameras wouldnТt spot him. Roof wouldnТt hold a car, though. Anyway, nobody did it.Ф
УHow do you know?Ф
УIТll show you. By the way, we inspected the camera system. WeТre pretty sure the cameras werenТt tampered with.Ф
УAnd nobody came down from the roof last night except the girl?Ф
УNobody. Nobody even landed here until seven this morning. Look here.Ф We had reached the concrete stairs that led down into SinclairТs apartments. Valpredo pointed at a glint of light in the sloping ceiling, at heart level. УThis is the only way down. The camera would get anyone coming in or out. It might not catch his face, but itТd show if someone had passed. It takes sixty frames a minute.Ф
I went on down. A cop let me in.