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

"A person." I let that sink in. When his complexion has whitened sufficiently, I add, "Your eight-times great-grandfather, Sangria."
"Ohmigod." He looks so bad that I tentatively offer the servo's aid, but he waves it away. "Jesus. My-and I was going to-" He recovers some of his skepticism then, and says, "How do I know you're telling the truth?"
"You could enter his vault," I suggest. "Check out his life-support units, open his cabinet to look at him-"
"What would I see?"
"His naked brain in a fluid-filled case."
He vomits. This time, he accepts the servo's assistance. When he has cleaned up, he rasps, "You're sick! How could you do that to a human being?" He pulls away from the machine, as though afraid he'll be next. His lips quiver; his hands shake. "How, dammit, how? You're a computer, not God, you had no right-"
"I had every right," I say flatly. "I'm one, too. As human as your eight-times great-grandfather. And he, at least, lived to a ripe old age before it happened. Me-sorry, it's my problem, not yours. But I wanted you to know, so you wouldn't spend all your times plotting up ways to disable two 'machines' who actually aren't."
"But if it's really my, my . . . " He can't say it; all he can do is shake his head and swallow his thoughts. "Why didn't he ever say so?"
"He's been programmed not to. It's better for all concerned if no one understands that we're human."
"Yeah, yeah," he mutters, wobbling his way to the chair. "I see that . . . look, go away, leave me alone-I've got to think."
So I do. Another "Black Sand Base" conversation is coming in, anyway.
"-behind the moon. Sandy, bigger than shit and meaner than hell and it hates me, I can feel it, coming at me, I'm turning and running, don't leave the ground, stay down there, it's moving faster than it-"
And that is the end of that conversation, although Black Sand Base keeps trying to start it up again . . .
Some Terrans are-were-in trouble; apparently they got something mad at them and are-were-paying the price . . .
I feel curiously distant from them. It is more than physical-hearing their anguished voices, I should empathize, ache to help-but that was so long ago, and so far away . . . I'm not Terran any longer. I'm not human. Replaying the tape, I find myself fretting about their ships . . .
"How goes the universe. Cool Cap?" asks a familiar voice.
"Ms. Ioanni, good morning. Nice to hear your dulcet tones. The universe appears to be in good shape, although some life forms out there are not too fond of humanity."
"How so?" Today her hair winds around the top of her head; she wears a blue T-shirt with white shorts. Swooping into an armchair, she reminds me that people can be graceful, if they put their minds to it . . .
When I play her the maydays, a frown creeps across her face. "Are they coming this way?"
"There's no way to tell until my sensors pick them up."
"What do you think?"
"I plead insufficient data."
"Well, what does this do to your plans not to land?"
"Nothing-just reminds me to be careful when I sneak up on aliens, that's all."
"Still going to let us come with you?"
"It doesn't bother you?"
"It scares the pants off me-but what the hell. Something's going to trim me sooner or later, and I'd prefer to have the inevitable happen in space. It's more, oh . . . majestic-to go down-up?-with your ship, don't you think?"
"Speaking for the ship. I'd say majesty lies in survival."
She laughs at that, a clear smooth laugh that fills the room with honest warmth. "Cool Cap?"
"Yes?"
"The thing is, most of us Travelers-that's what we call ourselves now-we don't want to be dead weight. I mean, we'll be pulling out of the Canopus system in what, thirteen years?"
"Allow more than five to get the colony started," I say. "Figure twenty."
"All right. So we're leaving in twenty years. All the Landers have jobs to do, but what about us? Once we're gone, what can we do to make the journey . . . "
"Interesting?" I offer.
"No," she says thoughtfully. "It'll be that in any event . . . worthwhile. In the sense that we'll have contributed to it."
Honesty is called for: "I don't know. I'm self-sufficient; I don't need people . . . you have to figure out why you're going, and then take it from there."
Disappointment wrinkles her high forehead.
"Mary," I say, "there are possibilities-communicating with aliens, exobiology, etiology, these sorts of things. And there are human art forms which you could attempt to develop-or develop differently, given the environment-ballet, music, painting . . . investigations we can carry out together, searching for life in deep space and so on . . . the thing is, you people have to decide what within you can best be fulfilled by staying aboard-and then vow to fulfill it, no matter how much sweat and anguish it involves. See what I mean?"
"Yeah," she murmurs, rising and crossing to the porthole. "Yeah, I do see. Dim the lights, will you?"
"Sure."
"It's beautiful out there . . . empty. Cool Cap-" she whirls suddenly and stretches out her arms. "They think they can force you down. Can they?"
"No. And if they try, well . . . I could refuse to drop them off." That is a lie, as Sangria hastens to remind me. "Tell them that."
Her face brightens. "I will."
At about which time the chemical supply division reports that Billy Jo Dunn Tracer, a nineteen-year-old chemistry student and rabid Lander, has acquired enough chemicals to blow a very large hole in me . . .
When I look in on her, she is just starting work on her bomb.

Billy Jo Dunn Tracer was a tall, willowy woman with green eyes and red hair. Hunched over a workbench in the Inorganic Chemistry Lab, she was running the last few tests on a batch of Super High Explosive-SHE, for short. This formula has passed the oxidation, handling, and plastic-case contact tests, but only in a dry, dust-free state. Tracer now had to determine what would happen if the silvery powder became damp, or contaminated.
She could sense the eyes of the Cube boring into her. Everywhere-waking, washing, working-she was observed. The hairs of her neck constantly bristled with the "somebody's watching" sensation. Her shoulders were always squared; her stomach was perpetually taut. Nerve-wracking.
And all because the Cube had happened to notice, five years ago, that she had requested chemicals that could be synthesized into explosives! Of all the silly things . . . true, her requisition hadn't been accompanied by a research prospectus explaining the need for them, but the Cube could have asked, instead of coldly assuming the worst . . . it was a valid, valuable line of inquiry: the colony would face a tremendous amount of excavation, even if established on a flat plain or in a friendly valley . . . it would need good, non-nuclear explosives, which meant somebody had to develop them . . . although maybe, she thought, stroking the slick plastic case, it was a mistake to start work while I was mouthing off so much . . . then she shook her auburn head and tightened her lips. No, she thought, no! I had a perfect right to do both, and if the Cube doesn't like it, it can . . . oh, hell, she upbraided herself, you know damn well you were thinking you could slip something past it-cook up a SHE that would serve on the ground, but that would also help force the Cube to let us take it down . . .
The waldo in the test chamber poised a dropper above the milligram of powder, and squeezed out one cubic millimeter of water. The SHE darkened as it absorbed the moisture.