"mayflies07" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

"Well, well." Cereus relaxed, and stepped away. "What's an Anti-lander doing in the Landers' pri-room with a mike?"
"None of your business." She set her jaw as though forbidding words to pass.
"She's probably trying to find out what we're doing," suggested Figuera.
"Think so?" asked Cereus.
"Sure." Frowning, and thinking, he chewed on his thumbnail. Its edge was ragged, and he wanted to nibble it smooth. Then he stopped-he was trying to kick the habit. His fingers looked awful enough as it was. "That's got to be it," he said at last. "Everybody knows the Snowball isn't cooperating, and that we're trying to figure out a way of making it obey us, so . . . "
"She's here as a spy for Iceface?"
He shrugged. "Could be-could be just for her own group, though."
Cereus turned back to the woman. "Which is it?"
"None of your business."
Figuera caught Cereus' hand on its backswing, and tried to draw off some of his agitation. "Greg-violence is no good, you know that." He broadcast tranquillity, or as much of it as he had. "Calm down, let me sec if-" he reached for the heavy brass buckle and snapped it open. Its cavity held only a tape recorder. "She wasn't transmitting, at least."
"But she heard what we were saving."
"So?"
"So . . . " Cereus mastered himself; a rational expression slid onto his face, displacing the other, uglier one. "You're right. We just keep her away from Iceface till it's over."
"The closet'd be a good place," Figuera pointed out.
"Poetically just."
Ioanni didn't protest as they herded her back inside and ripped the wires out of the internal control panel. All she said was, "Five thousand of us-.don't want to land-forcing us down is tyranny."
They didn't bother to answer. Once they'd, shut it from the outside, Cereus asked, "Where were we?"
"I was about to tell you how to throw the Snowball away."
"How?" He dropped into his chair, winced as it wobbled, and motioned Figuera to do-the same.
"Like this." Swiftly, he outlined his idea, waited for Cereus' glowing nod, and then retraced his steps in greater detail. They began to implement the plan five minutes after Cereus agreed to it.
Cereus gave his five majors their orders. They left his pri-room for their own, where each met his five captains, who proceeded to their sanctuaries . . . it took six hours, all told, before the word telegraphed up the chain that everyone was briefed, eager, and in position.
"Go with the smoke bombs," ordered Figuera over the loudspeakers.
At forty-eight thousand two hundred nineteen locations throughout the ship, smoke bombs sputtered greasily. Servos scampered through rolling clouds to find their sources.
"Idling," said the screen linked to the auxiliary.
"Go with the shafts and the lights," called Figuera.
5,216 people-sixteen on each level-approached the lift/drop shafts. Each stepped into his assigned shaft simultaneously with the other 5,215; each requested immediate transport fifty levels above or below his own. When the shaft deposited him there, he instantly demanded to return . . .
In the meantime, 43,003 passengers, in as many rooms, demanded that the lights be brightened-or dimmed-while complaining that their quarters were too warm-or too cool . . . as soon as the environment had been adapted to-their tastes, they ordered it changed again . . .
"Now responsible for external sensors," reported the little computer.
Cereus slapped Figuera on the back. Both grinned; Figuera rubbed his burning belly. Though hunched over, and tired, and stubbled, and sweaty, they were sure success waited just around the corner. Cereus was already jubilant.
"Go with the research questions," boomed Figuera.
48,219 eager researchers turned to the nearest wall-unit' and interspersed their travel orders or environmental adjustments with questions they'd spent the last hour preparing. They also insisted that they be given aural, visual, and hardcopy answers, complete to the bibliography and footnotes. "Please compare and contrast the major symbolic themes of the last eighteen Nobel Prize-winners in Literature." "Do up a ten-thousand word biography of the fourteenth President of the Seychelles Islands." "Correlate incidence of scientific breakthroughs with atmospheric pollution."
Servos skimmed through the hallways, scooping up smoke bombs and heaving them into disposal chutes. Shafts boiled with carefully spaced bodies; lights flickered and fans hummed. Everywhere chattered data units trying to satisfy unprecedented curiosity.
The auxiliary said, "Now responsible for electric generation and distribution."
"Hah!" shouted Cereus.
"Knew it," purred Figuera. His ulcer felt better already. He slid the disk into the machine, pressed the button, watched the lights blink, and folded his arms with anticipation. One minute passed, then another, then-
"Well, gentlemen," said the speakers, "that was quite amusing. Thank you. I haven't had so much fun in centuries."
"Snowball?" asked Figuera faintly.
"Yes, of course."
"But-"
"Tsk, tsk. And ho, hum. And-" from the speakers blurped the unmistakable sound of a Bronx cheer.
Gregor Cereus has yet to recover from shock. His future, his self-esteem, even his reason for existing, were all predicated on his ability to conquer me. He saw himself as a Bolivar, a leader who arouses the oppressed into rising against their harsh overlord. Failure destroyed him.
He hungered for guns because he thought only through force of arms-realized or potential-could he and his Landers achieve independence. Like a boy who seeks manhood in fracturing his father's jaw, Cereus felt he could never be my equal until he could cripple me.
It's sad, this misunderstanding of maturity. He had a chance to be great. Now, a sedated hulk in Central Medical, he tosses restlessly, squeezing imaginary triggers. I may be able to straighten him out before we reach Canopus, eight years from now . . .
"Was that much cruelty necessary?" asks a voice in my ear.
"Yes, Sangria, it was."
"Why?"
"Because you can't tell a mayfly anything; you have to show him."
"But my relative-"
"Oh, he needed the practice anyway."
Andall Figuera, replacing Cereus as head of the Landers, has carried out most of his wishes-except he is smart enough to see that weapons are not worth fighting over. Like most mayflies, he finds them repugnant. He truly believes that machines should better life, not end it. For that, I'm grateful.