"Kim Stanley Robinson - Icehenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

"Has Eric apologized for our kidnapping of you?"
I shook my head.
"I am sorry we shocked you. I hear you fought hard against the takeover. Eric
probably explained that we kept you ignorant for your own protection."
So smooth, he was. It just made me mad. He squinted at me, trying to gauge my
mood. Hard without a voice.
"The truth of the matter is," he went on, "the success of all the MSA's years of effort
depends on the creation of a fully closed life-support system in the starship. I believe our
scientists will be able to do it, but Swann has always said your ability with BLS systems
is extraordinary, and our scientists agree that you are the best. And they tell me we need
your help."
Did he think I would still be vain? "You're not--" I cleared my throat. "You're not
going to get it."
He stared at me, calm and bemused. "You still support the Committee? Even though
they have jailed your father on Amor, isn't that true?"
"Yes," I said. "But the Committee doesn't have anything to do with this."
"That is the equivalent of saying you still support them. But enough of that. We need
your help. Why won't you help us?"
After I didn't reply, he began to stride back and forth, rip rip rip. "You know," he said
with a nervous glance, "what happened between us occurred a long time ago. We were
both children then--"
"We were not children," I broke in. "We were free adults, on our own. We were just as
responsible for our actions then as we are now."
"All right," he said, pushing a hand through his hair. "You're right. We were not
children, admittedly." This was turning out to be more difficult than he had expected.
"But it was a long time ago."
"This has nothing to do with that time, anyway."
He looked confused. "Then why won't you help?"
"Because what you are attempting is impossible," I cried. "This is all a monstrous
fantasy of yours. You're ignoring the hard cold realities of deep space and leading people
to a miserable death out there, all because of some boyish notion of adventure that you've
been nursing all these years -- for so long that you can't distinguish between fantasy and
reality anymore!" I stopped, surprised by my vehemence. Davydov was wide-eyed.
"It's not my idea alone," he said weakly. "Every member of the MSA believes it is
possible."
"There have been mass delusions larger than this," I said, "following a fanatic leader."
His eyes glittered angrily. (This effect is the result, I believe, of tensing the forehead
muscles, thus shifting the layer of water over the eyes.) "I am no fanatic. We started as a
group without a leader. I was made leader by the Committee when they tried to destroy
us -- they wanted to say it was a single person's doing. Like you do. When we
reorganized, I was the one everyone knew about. But there are other leaders--"
"You started the reorganization, right?" Somehow I knew this was true. "Started up
your little secret society, invented the handshake--"
"The fact that we had to work in secret," he said loudly, and then lowered his voice,
"is incidental. A political reality, a fact of our time and place. A lot of work had to be
done that the Committee didn't want done. They wouldn't support us, but that doesn't
make the project bad! We're free of political motives, we are an act of cooperation
between Soviets and Americans -- we try to take humanity to permanent homes outside
the solar system, while we still can."
He stopped for breath, staring at me with his swarthy jaws bunched. "Now you" --