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

"Ivan Kinney," he said. "Could I and a few colleagues call on you?"
"Right now?"
"If possible."
"Sure." She sounded puzzled; Kinney hadn't spoken to her in months. "Come on up."
Of the other four, two were busy. Only Billie Mandell and Triscata Launder could meet them. "Let's go," he said to Tracer.
Stiffly, she rose from the sofa. Her muscles were sore from standing all day. She stretched-not at all minding the way Kinney's eyes brushed her torso as she raised her arms above and behind her head-then yawned, and said, "Okay."
Three minutes later, they met outside Ioanni's suite, before which paraded a regiment of tulips. No children hung around-Ioanni's were married, and living in their own suites with her grandchildren-but her husband, Salim Falaka, was just leaving. With a graceful bow, he stopped the door in its track for them.
Ioanni's smile was warm and genuine. Taking their hands, she kissed all four on the cheek. "Before we get down to business-and from your grim looks it has to be that-what would you like to drink?"
"Ice water," said Tracer. The symbolism pleased her.
A moment later she held the tall, cold glass in her hand, and listened to the clinking cubes counterpoint Kinney's conversation. For a scientist, he was reasonably eloquent, and explained their case in brief, yet persuasive terms. "So you see," he finished, "if Iceheart won't let us use the ship for the colony, we're going to have to be more prepared than otherwise--and it could help us, if it would only stop this childish moping. There are so many steps it could save us-but it won't talk to us, except when we ask it direct questions. Could you convince it?"
Ioanni chuckled; it was a deep and wholesome sound. "I can but try," she said, turning her head to the gray grillwork of the wall-unit. "Cool Cap-you've heard all this. Would you care to comment'?"
"I have no objections to being civil," replied the speakers, "but the Landers are constantly scheming to coerce me into agreeing to my own self-destruction, and that, I will not tolerate."
"Listen, Ice-" began Kinney.
"No, you listen. You've been plotting against me for a long time; now you want me to help you-why should I?"
"If we felt we'd no need of you, we'd not plot."
"So you're saying if I help you, you'll give up your schemes to cut me into houses?"
"Yes."
"No!" shouted Tracer, leaping to her feet while her hand dove into her pocket for the vial. She held the ice water steady in her other hand; with her teeth she unstopped the vial. "Don't anybody move!"
"What are you doing?" demanded CC.
"This is SHE-if I pour it into this water, it'll explode-put a hole right through that damn hull-don't anybody move." She nodded to Ioanni. "Lie down on the floor."
Pale but composed, Ioanni complied. "Face down."
She rolled over.
Sitting, Tracer balanced herself on Ioanni's butt. "Now all of you, get this straight. We're going to stop this nonsense right now-or else I set this off. You hear me. Cube?"
"Yes."
"No knockout gas." She tilled the container so that its lip overhung the rim of the glass. "I feel even a little woozy, I do it."
"BJ." said Kinney, "this is wrong, what you're doing-please, put down the SHE-violence'll not solve the problem."
Fascinated, she watched the minute trembling of her white fingers. A snake was loose in her stomach-the last thing she wanted was to have to pour the SHE-she was not a violent person, not really; just one who believed in something very strongly . . . tension heightened her senses; she could hear the tiny, tiny sound of glass brushing glass . . . she was just trying to prove her point, that was all-show everybody how serious this was-force the Cube to give up its insane, antihuman plans and submit itself to them.
"I've had it with you people," snapped the speakers. "If she plasts the place, it's not going to hurt me-I'll survive anything-but it'll term all of you. You think you can coerce me into giving myself up? Meth. I'm not going to put up with this. We're going to skip the Canopus system, that's all. No entry, no landing, nothing."
Kinney waited for it to go on, but-when the silence began to hang heavily, he forced his eyes to Tracer and said, "BJ, please-this is all wrong-we've moved past this sort of behavior, have we not? We're more mature than this. Please. Put it down."
"Uh-uh." She felt drunk, and giggled. Their faces wore shock, and that amused her, too. "If you don't want this to go blooie! you go up to-the Cube's icebox, and you disconnect it."
"I won't let you," said the metallic monotone.
"Then your precious Mary Ioanni goes up in a cloud of smoke."
"You'll go with her."
"So what? If you're not going to land, I don't care." She tilled the vial a fraction of a centimeter.
"You three," said CC with resignation, "come up to the central unit."
Ioanni gasped, "Coo-"
"I'm sorry. Mary." The door to the corridor opened. "Come on, all three of you."
As they left, Ioanni said, "Cool Cap, don't, please. I'm not worth it-"
"I'm very sorry, Mary. Truly, I am."
Before Tracer could react, a glitter filled the doorway: a servo. It was lobbing a round object at them. As she started to pour, she saw that the object was a portable g-unit. She just had time to wonder what the Cube thought it was doing when-
It was a short-range unit, set at 10-G, and it managed to stifle most of the blast's force.
The hull was holed, though.
Neither of the bodies was ever recovered.

We nose into the Canopus system late in March, 3295. To determine a more accurate date will be impossible for some years, because you can't define the borders of a system until you've plotted all the orbits of all the bodies in it . . . the nearest planet is still 200 million kilometers sunwards, but in our neighborhood, comets loiter and dust dances and junk readies itself for the long jaunt around its ellipse.
I've found the Landers a world. Through the scopes it looks beautiful: cotton candy swirled over a ball of beige and topaz. It is a little smaller than Earth, but as if to compensate, its density is a bit greater. Initial estimates place its gravity somewhere in the vicinity of 1.080. Since I have to decelerate anyway, I throw on the ramscoop, and brake at 10.8 meters/sec2. This shuts down the shipboard g-units. Residents of odd-numbered levels either move out, or live on their ceilings, but the crowding and the inconvenience are temporary.
Long-range spectroscopy reveals oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen in the atmosphere; it also shouts "Water on the surface!" Radar mapping is difficult, though: the atmosphere absorbs, diffuses, and diffracts. I think I see plains, oceans, and four major, monstrous mountain chains. Perhaps a third of the world's surface area is land.
Strange tides splash down there-the planet has four moons, one twice as massive as the one I grew up beneath, another close to that size, and two moonlets, much smaller, though very close.
But I can't start making plans, because first I have to have a showdown with the Landers-and it isn't of my making.
Clustered in their headquarters, the former 12-SW Common Room, is a grimmer-faced batch of mayflies than I've seen in a long time. Ivan Kinney is their spokesman. Uncomfortable in his role, he must have accepted it under duress. He stands behind a long Formica table, fidgeting with the wires, cutters, prototype survival kits, and non-lethal electric stun poles that clutter its surface.