"Tilley, Patrick - The Amtrack Wars 02 - First Family" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tilley Patrick)

his lifetime anyway. That particular dream, like so many of the
current operations, was badly behind schedule. Deke was careful to
keep his thoughts on the matter to himself. It did not pay to comment
on any shortfall in the Federation's performance. Like all Trackers,
Deke had been bludgeoned from birth by one, constantly reiterated,
fundamental truth - 'It is only people who fail; not the system'.

The desktop console that required Deke's attention while on duty was a
three-sided affair with twenty-four tv monitors ranged in two rows
around it. The monitors were linked to remote-controlled cameras
mounted overhead, on the top of the windowless watchtower.

These were the ever-watchful eyes of the way-station.

Through them, Deke and the other VidComm Techs kept the surrounding
area - known as the station precinct - under constant surveillance;
twenty-four hours a day; 365 days a year. Their purpose was to provide
early warning of a precinct incursion by hostiles; armed bands of Mutes
- the perpetual enemies of the Federation. It was not necessary to sit
glued to the screens. Each camera had an image analyser and was
programmed to react to a range of specific shapes and movements. It
knew what the area it covered looked like down to the last pebble and
if it saw anything on four or two legs or a rock or bush that had moved
out of place it alerted the duty crewman by means of an audiovisual
alarm.

Normally, Deke looked forward to his four-hour stint as Duty VidComm
Tech but today, the overground had failed to deliver the special kind
of action he craved.

Never mind. Deke had devised his own backup entertainment. Swivelling
round in his chair, he slid open the bottom drawer of a stack under the
left wing of the desk, inserted his forearm and retrieved a video
cassette lying right at the back in the dead space between the
underside of the drawer and the floor.

Deke pushed the video cassette into the nearest record/play slot,
slipped a lightweight headset over his ears, started the tape running
and brought the picture up on the screen in front of him. It was a
dawn sequence, a deep rose-pink sky overhung with ragged clusters of
pale violet clouds. A thin soft-edged line of deep chrome yellow
appeared and spread swiftly north and south along the horizon,
heralding the rising sun. The sharp clear sounds of the illicitly-made
electronic sound track cut through the muzzy boredom that clogged his
brain and made his spine tingle with its forbidden rhythmic beat.

Reared at Nixon/Fort Worth and originally a lineman aboard the Rio
Bravo wagon-train, Deke had been caught in a Mute ambush on his third
operational tour and badly wounded in the legs. Although this
automatically qualified him for a home-base assignment, Deke had