"Robert Reed - Decency" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reed Robert)

The impact itself was beautiful. Ghostly fires marked where the leading
edge bit into the stratosphere. Without sound or fuss, the sail evaporated
into a gentle rain of atomized metals. But the spiderweb structures were
more durable, weathering the impact, tens of thousands of miles of
material falling over three continents and as many oceans, folding and
fracturing on their way down, the most massive portions able to kill
sparrows and crack a few windows and roof tiles.

No planes were flying at the time, as a precaution. Few people were
driving. Subsequent figures showed that human death rates had dropped
for that critical hour, a worldly caution in effect; then they lifted
afterward, parties and carelessness taking their inevitable toll.

The sail's central region detached itself at the end, then broke into still
smaller portions. One portion crashed along the shore of Lake Superior.
The Fox affiliate in Duluth sent a crew, beating the military by twenty
minutes. The only witness to the historic event was a temperamental bull
moose. Only when it was driven off did the crew realize that the sail wasn't
an automated probe. A solitary crew member lay within a fractured
diamond shell, assorted life-support equipment heaped on all sides.
Despite wounds and the fiery crash, it was alive тАФan organism built for
gravity, air, and liquid water. A trembling camera showed the world its
first genuine alien sprawled out on the forest floor, a dozen jointed limbs
reaching for its severed web, and some kind of mouth generating a clear,
strong, and pitiful wail that was heard in a billion homes.

A horrible piercing wail.

The scream of a soul in perfect agony.
 Caleb was one of the guards supplied by the U.S. Marines.

Large in a buttery way, with close-cropped hair and tiny suspicious
eyes, Caleb was the kind of fellow who would resemble a guard even
without his uniform or bulky side arm. His service record was flawless. Of
average intellect and little creativity, nonetheless he possessed a double
dose of what, for lack of a better word, could be called shrewdness.

Working the security perimeter, he helped control access to the alien.
The bug, as he dubbed it, without a shred of originality. Twice in the first
two days he caught unauthorized civilians attempting to slip inside тАФone
using a false ID, the other hiding inside bales of computer paper. Late on
the third day he found a fellow guard trying to smuggle out a piece of the
bug's shell. "It's a chunk of diamond," was the man's pitiful defense.
"Think what it's worth, Caleb. And I'll give you halfтАж what do you sayтАж ?"

Nothing. He saw no reason to respond, handcuffing the man тАФ a
sometime acquaintance тАФthen walking him back toward the abrupt little
city that had sprung up on the lakeshore. Double-walled tents were kept
erect with pressurized air and webs of rope, each tent lit and heated, the
rumble of generators and compressors making the scene appear busier