"Allen Steele - Glorious Destiny" - читать интересную книгу автора (Steele Allen)

Glorious Destiny
Allen M. Steele
Asimov's (2002-12)

"Glorious Destiny" is the final story in a series that will soon be published by Ace.
The novel-length version will be entitled Coyote. Two tales in that series, "Stealing
Alabama" (January 2001) and "The Days Between" (March 2001), have been
nominated for Hugo Awards. The author is now working on a second set of Coyote
stories, the first of whichтАФ"The Mad Woman of Shuttlefield"тАФis already in our
inventory.

Liberty: Zamael, Gabriel 16, c.y.3 / 1906

The comet had appeared a couple of weeks earlier, in the last few days of Hanael
before the winter solstice that marked the end of the Coyote year. At first it was little
more than a hazy white splotch that hovered just above the southeastern horizon after
sundown, and no one in Liberty paid much attention to it until its nimbus grew
brighter and a distinct tail began to form. Eighteen nights later, its luminescence was
rivaled only by Bear, until the superjovian rose high enough to eclipse the comet so
that it couldn't be seen again until it made a brief reappearance in the northwestern
sky a couple of hours before dawn.
Like everyone else in Liberty, Robert Lee notices the comet; lately, though, he's
given it little more than a passing glance. As chairman of the Town Council, other
matters rank higher on his list of priorities. The last of the autumn crops are in, and
although the colony won't have to worry about food shortages this winter, swampers
discovered the corn stored in one of the silos shortly before they went into
hibernation; the tunnels they dug beneath the refurbished Alabama cargo module
threaten to undermine its foundation and eventually topple it. Two more colonists
have come down with ring disease; it isn't contagious and is easily treated with
antibiotics, but Kuniko Okada has privately warned him that the drug supply is
running dangerously low. One of the aerostats was toppled two weeks ago by a severe
windstorm; if it's not rebuilt soon, the council will have to start rationing electrical
power.
And then there's the storm that's been forming a few hundred miles east of the
Meridian Sea, slowly gathering force as it creeps eastward along the Great Equatorial
River. It's still on the other side of the planet, so it's possible that it might die off, but
if it doesn't it'll soon rip across the southern plains of Great Dakota and slam straight
into New Florida.
Tonight, though, the sky is clear: no clouds, no wind, the stars serene in their
crystalline beauty. As Lee marches across the light snow covering the frozen mud of
Main Street, he spots a small group of people gathered outside the grange. They've
built a small fire within a garbage barrel and clustered around it to keep warm, yet
their eyes are turned upward. It's not hard to figure out what they're watching.
"Evening, folks," he says. "Comet keeping you busy?"
Everyone looks around. Smiles, murmured greetings: "Evening, Mr. Mayor,"
"Hi, Captain," "Hello, Robert," and so forth. Now he can make out individual faces,
shadowed by the parka hoods and downturned cap bills: Jack Dreyfus, Henry
Johnson, Kim Newell, and Tom Shapiro. Tom, Jack, and Kim are former Alabama
crew members, of course, Henry was once a civilian scientist, yet people seldom
make such distinctions any more. Lee's the only person anyone still addresses by his