"Callahan 02 - Time Travellers Strictly Cash 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Spider)

"Seёora, It would be well to do it now."
The smile vanished and she turned to the chief surgeon. "Doctor Ruiz-Sanchez, I said 1200 hours. To the second. You have made me repeat myself.".
Her voice was quite gentle, and a normal man Would have gone very pale and shut up, but good doctors are not normal men. "Senora, the longer he is on machine life-support-"
"HUMOR ME!" she bellowed, nd he sprang back three steps and tripped over a power cable, landing heavily on his back. Technicians jumped, then went expressionless and looked away. Ruiz-Sanchez got slowly to his feet, flexing his fingers. He was trembling. "Si, seёora."
She turned away from him at once, returned to contemplation of her beloved. There was dead silence in the cryotheater, save for the murmur and chuckle of life-support machinery and the thrum of powerful generators. Cryotechnology was astonishingly power-thirsty, she reflected. The "restart.. er" device alone drank more energy than hez4esk, though it delivered only a tiny fraction of that to the pineal gland. She disliked the noisy, smelly generators on principlel but a drain this large had to be unmetered. Especially if it had to be repeated several times. Mass murder is easy, she thought.
All you need is a good mind and unlimited resources. And one trusted friend.
She checked the wall-clock. It lacked- five minutes of noon. The tile floor felt pleasantly cool to her bare feet; the characteristic cryotheater smell was subliminally invigorating. "Maybe this time, love," she murmured to the half-living body. "Maybe not. But soon."
The door banged open and a guard hurled backward into the room, landing asprawl. Dimsdale stepped over him, breathing hard. He was wild-eyed and seemed drunk.
Only for the barest instant did shock paralyze her, and even for that instant only the tightening of the corners of her mouth betrayed her fury at his imprudence.
"Seёor," Ruiz-Sanchez cried in horror, "you are not. sterile!"
"No, thank God," Dimsdale said, looking only at her.
"What are you doing here, John?" she asked carefully.
"Don't you see, Reb?" He gestured like a beggar seeking alms. "Don't you see? It's all got to mean something. If it is true, there's got to be a point to it, some kind of purpose. Maybe we get just a hair smarter each time round the track. A bit more mature. Maybe we grow. Maybe what you're trying to do is get him demoted. I've studied all three of them, and so help me God every one of them is making more of his childhood than Archer did. They may not grow up to be as successful as he was. But they'll be happier."
Her voice cracked like a whip now. "John! This room is not secure."
He started, and awareness came into his eyes. He glanced around at terrified doctors and technicians.
"Rebecca, I studied them all first hand. I made it my business. I had to. Three eleven year old boys, Rebecca. They have parents. Grandparents. Brothers and sisters, playmates, hopes and dreams. They have futures," he cried, and stopped. He straightened to his full height and met her eyes squarely. "I will not murder them, even for you. I can't."
"Madre de dios, no!" Ruiz-Sanchez moaned in terror.
The anesthesio1ogist began singiig his death-song softly and to himself. A technician bolted hopelessly for the door.
Rebecca Howell screamed with rage, a hideous sound, and slammed her hands down on the nearest console. One hand shattered an irrigator, which began fountaining water. "You bastard," she raged. "You filthy bastard!"
He did not flinch. "I'm sorry. I thought I could."
She took two steps backward, located a throwable object and let fly. It was a tray of surgical instruments.
Pimsdale stood his ground. The tray itself smashed into his mouth, and a needle-probe stuck horribly in his shoulder. Technicians began fleeing.
-"Reb," he said, blood starting down his chin, "whoever orders this incredible circus, you and your fucking desk can't outwit Him! Archer died, eleven years ago. You cannot have him back. If you'll only listen to me, I can-"
She screamed again and leaped for him. Her intention was plainly to kill him with her hands, and he knew she was more than capable of it, and again he stood his ground.
And saw her foot slip in the puddle on the floor, watched one flailing arm snarl in the cables that trailed from the casing of the pineal reatarter and yank two of them loose, saw her land face first in water at the same instant as the furiously sparking cables, watched her buck and thrash and begin to die.
Frantically he located the generator that fed the device and sprang for it. Ruiz-Sanchez blocked his way, holding a surgical laser like a dueling knife. Dimsdale froze, and the doctor locked eyes with him. Long after his ears and nose told him. it was too late, Dimsdale stood motionless.
At last he slumped. "Quite right," he murmured softly. Ruiz-Sanchez continued to aim the laser at his heart. They were alone in the room.
"I have no reason to think this room has been bugged by anyone but Rebecca," Dimsdale said wearily. "And the only thing you know about me is that I won't kill innocent people. Don't try to understand what has happened here. YOu and your people can go in peace. I'll clean up here. I won't even bother threatening you."
Ruiz-Sanchez nodded and lowered the laser. "Go collect your team, Doctor, before they get themselves into trouble. You can certify her accidental death for me.
The doctor nodded again and began to leave.
"Wait."
He turned.
Dimsdale gestured toward the open cryotank. "How do I pull the plug on this?"
Ruiz-Sanchez did not hestiate. "The big switch. There, by the coils at this end." He left.

An hour and a half later, Dimsdale had achieved a meeting of minds with her chief security officer and her personal secretary, and had been left alone in the den. He sat at her desk and let his gaze rest on the terminal keyboard. At this moment thousands of people were scurrying and thinking furiously; her whole mammoth empire was in chaos. Dimsdale sat at its effective center, utterly at peace. He was in no hurry; he had all the time in the world, and everything he had ever wanted.
We do get smarter every time, he thought. I'm sure of it.
He made the desk yield up the tape of what had transpired in the cryotheater, checked one detail of the tape very carefully, satisfied himself that it was the only copy, and wiped it. Then, because he was in no hurry, he ordered scotch.
When she's wenty, I'll only be fifty-seven, be thought happily. Not even middle-aged. It's going to work. This time it's going to work for both of us. He set down the scotch and told the desk to locate him a girl who had been born at one minute and forty-three seconds before noon. After a moment, it displayed data.
"Orphan, by God!" he said aloud. "That's a. break."
He took a long drink of scotch on the strength of it, and then he told the desk to begin arranging for the adoption. But it was the courtship he was thinking about.


Concerning "Soul Search":

I have always felt faintly guilty about the Campbell Award.
Every year the members of the World Science Fiction Society* vote on the Hugo Awards for professional and fannish achievement in sf. Since 1973 they have also voted the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. It is technically a non-Hugo, and has been privately sponsored by Conde-Nast Publications, former publishers of Analog (formerly Astounding), the magazine which the late John Campbell used to invent modem science fiction. Davis Publications, Analog's new owner, will continue the tradition.
The award was originally suggested by Ben Bova, who was named editor of Analog when John died. Anyone whose first professional sf publication took place within the previous years is eligibIe. **
In 1 974 Lisa Tuttle and I tied for the second Campbell Award.
It was the first award of any kind that I ever won (barring a scholarship), and I tied for it fair and square, and I'm quite proud of it. And yet there is a certain sense in which I feel a little funny about it.