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

spots on the deep-sea fish of Earth. They looked small beside an irregular blue-gray
asteroid, against the dead black of space.
I left the lounge slowly. Turned and walked down the corridor--
In the dining commons it was bedlam.
I stopped and stared. Of the entire crew of forty-three, at least twenty-five must have
been in the commons, shouting and laughing, six or seven singing the Ode to Joy, others
setting up the drinks table (Ilene maneuvering the mass of the big coffee pot), John and
Steven and Lanya in a mass hugging and laughing -- sobbing, tears in their eyes. And on
the video screen was a straight-on camera shot of the two ships, silver dots against a blue-
gray asteroid, so that it looked like a die thrown through the vacuum.
They all had known. Every single one of them in the room. I found myself blinking
rapidly, embarrassed and angry. Why hadn't I been told? I wiped my eyes and got out of
the doorway before I was noticed by someone inside.
Andrew Duggins flew by, pulling himself along the hall rails. His big face was
scowling. "Emma!" he said, "come on," and pulled away. I only looked at him, and he
stopped. "This is a mutiny!" he said, jerking his head in the direction of the commons.
"They're taking over the ship, and those others out there too. We've got to try and get a
message off to Ceres -- to defend ourselves!" With a hard yank he pulled himself away,
in the direction of the radio room.
Mutiny. All of the mysterious events I had noticed fell together, into a pattern. A plan
to take over the ship. Had Swann been too afraid of the possibility to discuss it?
But there was no time for a detailed analysis. I leaped off the floor, and with a strong
pull on the rail was after Duggins.
Outside the radio room there was a full-fledged fight going on. I saw Al Nordhoff
striking one of the ship police in the face, Amy Van Danke twisting furiously in the hold
of two men, trying to bite one in the throat. Others struggled in the doorway. Shouts and
Amy's shrieks filled the air. The fight had that awkward, dangerous quality that all brawls
in weightlessness exhibit. A blow that connected (one of Al's vicious kicks to the head of
a policeman, for instance) sent both parties spinning across the room....
 "Mutiny!" Duggins bellowed, and diving forward crashed into the group in the
doorway. His momentum bowled several people into the radio room, and an opening was
cleared. I shoved off from the wall and grazed my head on the doorjamb going in.
After that things were blurry, but I was angry -- angry that I had been deceived, that
Swann and the general order of things were being challenged, that friends of mine were
being hit -- and I swung blindly. I caught one of the policemen on the nose with my fist,
and his head smacked the wall with a loud thump. The room was crowded, arms and legs
were swinging. The radio console itself was crawling with bodies. Duggins was
bellowing still, and hauling figures away from the mass on the radio controls. Someone
got me in a choke hold from behind. I put heel to groin and discovered it was a woman --
put elbow in diaphragm and twisted under her arm, nearly strangled. Duggins had cleared
the radio and was desperately manipulating the dials. I put a haymaker on the ear of a
man trying to pull him away. Screams and spherical droplets of blood filled the air--
Reinforcements arrived. Eric Swann slipped through the doorway, his red hair flying
wild, a tranquilizer gun in his hand. Others followed him. Darts whizzed through the air,
sounding like arrows. "Mutiny!" I shrieked. "Eric! Mutiny! Mutiny!",
He saw me, pointed his gun at me and shot. I looked at the dart hanging from my
forearm.
...The next thing I knew, I was being guided down the jump tube. Leaving it at my
floor. I saw Swann's face swimming above me. "Mutiny," I said.
"That's true," Eric replied. "We're going to have to put you under arrest for a few