"Charles Stross - Escape" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

"Why is that?" he asks.

"I'm not omniscient ..."

Time passes rapidly. We close with the quiescent target, stealth-sneaking in from the anti-sunward side,
almost invisible. As we approach, drones awaken in the payload bay. Hastily rigged weapons twitch and
track, transceivers rattle and bleep behind shielded test rigs.

Most of us, most of the bodies packed into this metal canister, are tense. There are people everywhere;
in the tunnel, in the cabins, doubled and tripled up, in the gym, on the bridge ... breathing, coughing,
farting, talking humanity. We take turns sleeping, three people sharing each cabin. Privacy is a captured
glance in a crowded core module, a quiet word and touch. I want time to talk to Raisa, but nothing can
be resolved like this. I know I should tell her what I feel, but there's no space, no opportunity. I want to
explore this and I want to find out why, why she has this ambivalence towards me, while I don't know
quite what I feel about her, be it love or something else. Since Miramor I've been trying to tell myself that
the shallow was deep and the deep was unnecessary, but there's no room for that now; I don't
understand why she gets me so upset. I need to come to terms with why I keep rejecting every chance I
have, this wilful perversity. She's no fool, she can probably guess all this, but ... there is no privacy here.
Just eyes.

Which is how I participate in the assault; through other people's eyes. Wisdom interfaces are a
many-featured tool. I can siphon off everything my victim feels, integrate and understand it ... whisper
quiet words of advice in their ears ... A certain nervous tension grips me as I sit in on their thoughts, a
voyeur ready to take over if it goes critical. That's what Boris and Mik wanted, a professional hitter to
take the controls. Still, I am not used to this. I'm a solitary predator wasp, not an army ant. So when the
time comes, when everyone is lying quiet in the close hot darkness of the ship, when the clatter up front
tells me that the drones are dropping free to drift towards our prey, following a rain of smart sand spies
-- then I close my eyes and float in amber mind-spaces, and watch through borrowed eyes.

Seventy spaceships close with the intruder in the depths of space. They drift in darkness, forward
surfaces chilled and dark, communicating only over secured quantum channels. Even though it shouldn't
be possible to tap these links, they use a strange, stilted jargon that should mean nothing to robot
listeners. I watch a map that changes slowly, tracking them over the last thousand kilometres. There's a
banging from the payload bay in front as the drones prepare to launch. I listen in on the command channel
as Boris talks to his peers. There's no place for me in this battle. My job is simple: to sit tight ... and think
the unthinkable.

"Ulianov, Pol Pot, Reagan. Your election campaign is ready."

" Acknowledged, Bronstein. Manifestoes are printed. Manifestoes are signed. Posting manifestoes.
Door-stepping voters. Ulianov confirms: all manifestoes are in the post."

Six blinking dots drop away from the three spacecraft, drifting with dreamlike slowness towards the
target.

"Tojo, how are your opinion polls?"

" Opinion polls ready. Polling --" a huge radar pulse pings out, lighting up the screen -- " The voter is
not responding. Launching decoy manifesto. Manifesto printed, signed and posted."