"Bc27" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry & Pournelle)

"He has great leadership potential, but . . . "
"But?"
Rachael said, "If the combination of ectogynic origin and lack of specific bonding and imprinting hit anyone hardest, it was Aaron Tragon. I think that he has bonded not to the members of the colony, but to the dream of colonization itself."
"What's wrong with that?" Sylvia asked.
Aaron's image, larger than life, stared down at them, immense, serious, intent.
"I don't mean that he has an idealistic view of what this colony should be. I don't mean that he has the kind of gung-ho conquer-the-universe attitude that we had to have to get onto Geographic in the first place. I mean literally that dream itself, the dream of spreading across the mainland, the planet. The entire Tau Ceti system itself. Of Mankind taking the stars and remaking them to Aaron's wishes. That dream is his mother and father, his reason for being. That dream was what this was all about, remember?"
"I . . . remember." Cadmann was thoughtful. "But his debates . . . sometimes they seem almost conservative. Back to nature? Live-with-the-planet sort of speeches."
"Well, I don't think he wants to strip-mine the planet. He wants to people the planet. Our technology is advanced enough to live in harmony with Avalon--there is no need to produce more children than Avalon can handle."
"And second?"
"I think that Aaron Tragon stopped showing us his true face a long time ago."
The image of Aaron at twelve appeared, duplicated itself along the walls.
Rachel looked from one image to another and sighed. "Aaron believes that the original colonists have abandoned the dream. Betrayed it. I think he is internally rather than externally motivated. I think that he might have little true contact with anyone. I think that Aaron's sense of love has only to do with goal accomplishment."
Carolyn smiled, a flash of what she must have been like a hundred years ago. "Of course that goes beyond sociobiology."
"A little. But none of that makes him dangerous," Rachel said. "Or does it? And my daughter is in love with him, and pregnant by him, and sometimes I can't remember I'm a psychiatrist."
Carolyn put her arm around Rachel. They stood together and looked at the Aaron images.
Cadmann shook his head. "What disturbs me is the entire dirigible incident. He had us. From the first moment to the last. We were set up beautifully. But there was something so . . . so utterly cold-blooded about it that . . . "
"That what?"
"That it makes me wonder who Aaron Tragon really is. Who's really alive behind his eyes."
"You ought to know if anyone does."
"Me? Why?"
"Because he probably bonded more to you than anyone else. It's clear he thinks of you as his father."
"I--" Cadmann hesitated. "I was going to say I hadn't known that, but I suppose I did. He was always finding reasons to go places with us, and it wasn't just that Justin and Jessica were his friends. But I don't know who's in there, Rachael."
"I've told you most of what there is to know."
"No," Cadmann said. "Who were his parents?"
Rachael looked uncomfortable. "All right. It's not as if it was actually security sealed. It was more a general colonial agreement. I guess I just feel uncomfortable. It was under my own code--that was why you couldn't access it." She cleared her throat. "The father was from Earth. A Swedish mathematician of Russian extraction named Koskov."
Cadmann seemed to relax, Carlos noticed. As if he had expected--and feared--another revelation altogether. "And the mother?"
Rachael looked at Sylvia. Sylvia colored, and the psychologist nodded.
"That's right," she said. "Aaron Tragon is your son. It was your egg."
"Justin's half-brother," Cadmann said quietly.
"Yes. If there had been any danger of Aaron relating to one of his sisters, I would have said something. I keep track of such things . . . but it never came up. Jessica isn't his biological sister any more than Justin is."
Sylvia was very quiet, still, her mind off in some unreachable place. "Aaron and Justin."
"What do we do now?" Rachael asked.
"I think we go to the mainland. On the next dirigible."
Sylvia curled onto her side, still floating an inch or so off the chair. "I never held him," she said quietly. "I never told him that he was mine, that I would watch him and care for him. That he was the most beautiful thing in the world. The most precious child in existence."
"Probably no one did," Rachael said. "We should have done that. Aaron, and thirty others. Belonging to no one but each other. No wonder they started their cult. They had to belong somewhere."
"Who is living in there?" Cadmann asked.
"I think that we need to find out," Carlos said. "I think that we need to find out now."