"Larry Niven - Footfall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Sure," Roger said. "How are you?"
One of the writers looked thoughtful. "Wes Dawson . . . You're running for Craig Hosmer's old seat."
"Right."
"Wes has always been for the space program," Linda said. "Maybe you fellows will vote for him?"
"Not our district," Wade Curtis said. "We live north of there. But maybe we can help. We're always interested in people who'll promote space."
It was late afternoon when they got back to the house. Roger pulled into the driveway.
"You might as well come in and meet Jenny," Linda said. "Remember her?"
"Sure I remember The Brat. I had to bribe her to leave us alone!"
"Well, she's grown a bit now." Linda led the way to the house and unlocked the door. It was strangely silent inside. She went to the kitchen and found a note held to the refrigerator by a tomato-shaped magnet. Roger was standing behind her, scanning over her shoulder, as she read it.
515: Had to run down to San Diego. Beach party. Charlene's with me. Back tomorrow. Jenny
"She's a freshman at Long Beach State. Anthropology. But she took up scuba diving in a big way. Her curient boyfriend is at Scripps." Linda shook her head in dismay. "Mother will kill me if she finds out I let her go to an all-night party."
Roger shook his head. "The Brat's in college? Jeez, Linda, she can't be more than, what, fifteen?"
"Seventeen."
Roger sighed. "I guess it's been longer than I thought."
"Yes, it has been. Want some coffee?"
"Sure."
She got out the filters and put water on. Roger hadn't said anything, hadn't done anything, but she could feel the vibes. Had Jenny planned this? But no, she didn't know Roger was in/town, and she wouldn't if she had. She'd always liked Roger, but she liked Edmund more. No, Jenny wouldn't have deliberately ananged to leave her alone with a lover from the past.
It had been a long time, but she remembered every detail. Pampered Georgetown University freshman dating the reporter from the Washington Post. They'd planned it, a weekend together in her parents' Appalachian cabin. It had been summer, and no one was using the place. The weather in the mountains had been perfect. There'd been a delicious thrill of anticipation as they drove up the twisting highway. She hadn't had that feeling since.
Edmund was different. Edmund was older too, and more glamorous. Fighter pilot. Astronaut. Everything a hero should be. Everything but a great lover. . . That's not fair, not fair at all.
There'd been anticipation when she met Edmund. It lasted all during their courtship -- and died on their wedding night.
I'd forgotten all this, but I feel it now. Just as I did then. But -- the coffee machine was set up and there wasn't any reason to watch it any longer. She turned. Roger was standing very close to her. She didn't have to move very far to be in his arms.


PART ONE: THE ROGUES


1 DISCOVERY


"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
-- SHERLOCK HOLMES in The Sign of the Four

COUNTDOWN: H MINUS SIX WEEKS

The lush tropical growth of the Kona Coast ended abruptly. Suddenly the passionflower vines and palm trees were gone, and Jenny was driving through barren lava fields. "It looks like the back side of the Moon," she said.
Her companion nodded and pointed toward the slopes off to their right. "Mauna Loa. They say it's terrible luck to take any of the lava home."
"Who says?"
"The Old Hawaiians, of course. But a surprising number of tourists, too. They take the stuff home, and later they mail it back." He shrugged. "Bad luck or no, so far as anyone knows, she -- Mauna Loa is always she to the Old Ones -- she's never taken a life."
Captain Jeanette Crichton expertly downshifted the borrowed TR-7 as the road began another steep ascent. The terrain was deceptive. From the beach the mountains looked like gentle slopes until you tried climbing them. Then you realized just how big the twin volcanoes were. Mauna Kea rose nearly 14,000 feet above the sea -- and plunged 20,000 feet downward to the sea bottom, making it a bigger mountain than Everest.
"You'll turn left at the next actual road," Richard Owen said. "It'll be a way. Mind if I doze off? I had a late night."
"All right by me," she said. She drove on.
Not very flattering, she thought. Picks me up in Kona, gets me to drive him up the side of a volcano, and goes to sleep. Romantic.
She ran her fingers along her shoulder-length hair. It was dark brown with a trace of red, and at the moment it couldn't be very attractive since it was still damp from her morning swim. She hadn't much of a tan, either. Sometimes her freckles ran together to give the illusion of a tan, but it was too early in the spring for that. Damp hair, no tan. Not really the popular image of a California girl.
Her figure was all right, if a bit athletic; the Army encouraged officers to run four miles a day, and she did that although she could get out of the requirement if she really wanted to. The medium-length skirt and T-shirt showed her off pretty well. Still, it couldn't be looks that attracted this astronomer to her, any more than she was overwhelmed by his appearance. All the same, there'd been some electricity earlier. Now it was nearly gone.
He was up all night, she thought. And will be again tonight. Let him sleep. That should liven him up. God knows what I'd be like if I had to live on a vampire's schedule.
They drove through alternate strips of pasture and lava fields. At irregular intervals someone had made crude stacks of lava rocks. Three or four rocks, each smaller than the one below, the bottom one perhaps two feet across, piled in a stack; she'd been told they were religious offerings made by the Old Hawaiians. If so, they couldn't be very old; Mauna Loa erupted pretty often, and certainly this field had been overflowed several times during the twentieth century.
She turned left at the intersection, and the way became even steeper. The TR-7 labored through the climb. There were fewer fresh lava fields here; now they were on the side of Mauna Kea. "She" was supposed to be pretty thoroughly dormant. They drove through endless miles of ranchlands given by King Kamehameha to a British sailor who'd become the king's friend.
Richard Owen woke just as they reached the "temporary" wooden astronomy base station. "We stop here," he said. "Have some lunch."
There wasn't much there. Long one-story wooden barracks in a sea of lava and mud, with a few straggly trees trying to live in the lava field. She pulled in alongside several GMC Jimmy fourwheel-drive vehicles. "We could go on up," she said. "I don't really need lunch."
"Regulations. Acclimatization. It's nearly fourteen thousand feet at the top. Pretty thin air. Thin enough here at ten thousand It's not easy to do anything, even walk, until you get used to it."