"Charles Stross - A Colder War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

the byzantine world of the US intelligence services, he is talking about
building his very own pocket battleship and sailing it under the jolly roger
with letters of marque and reprise signed by the president. But Roger still
has some questions to ask, to scope out the limits of what Colonel North
is capable of. "What about FEVER DREAM, sir?''

The colonel puts his coffee-cup down. "I own it,'' he says, bluntly. "And
NIGHTMARE. And PLUTO. Any means necessary he said, and I have an
executive order with the ink still damp to prove it. Those projects aren't
part of the national command structure any more. Officially they've been
stood down from active status and are being considered for inclusion in
the next round of arms reduction talks. They're not part of the deterrent
ORBAT any more; we're standardizing on just nuclear weapons.
Unofficially, they're part of my group, and I will use them as necessary to
contain and reduce the Evil Empire's warmaking abilities.''

Roger's skin crawls with an echo of that childhood terror. "And the
Dresden Agreement ...?''

"Don't worry. Nothing short of them breaking it would lead me to do so.''
The colonel grins, toothily. "Which is where you come in ...''

The moonlit shores of Lake Vostok

The metal pier is dry and cold, the temperature hovering close to zero
degrees Fahrenheit. It's oppressively dark in the cavern under the ice, and
Roger shivers inside his multiple layers of insulation, shifts from foot to
foot to keep warm. He has to swallow to keep his ears clear and he feels
slightly dizzy from the pressure in the artificial bubble of air, pumped
under the icy ceiling to allow humans to exist here, under the Ross Ice
Shelf; they'll all spend more than a day sitting in depressurization
chambers on the way back up to the surface.

There is no sound from the waters lapping just below the edge of the pier.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruiswi...ten/spaar/Charles%20Stross%20-%20A%20Colder%20War.htm (9 of 34)19-2-2006 17:13:54
A Colder War - a novelette by Charles Stross

The floodlights vanish into the surface and keep going -- the water in the
sub-surface Antarctic lake is incredibly clear -- but are swallowed up
rapidly, giving an impression of infinite, inky depths.

Roger is here as the colonel's representative, to observe the arrival of the
probe, receive the consignment they're carrying, and report back that
everything is running smoothly. The others try to ignore him, jittery at the
presence of the man from DC. There're a gaggle of engineers and
artificers, flown out via McMurdo base to handle the midget sub's
operations. A nervous lieutenant supervises a squad of marines with
complicated-looking weapons, half gun and half video camera, stationed
at the corners of the raft. And there's the usual platform crew, deep-sea rig