"Joan D. Vinge - Fireship" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vinge Joan D)

clouds, and decided that if HEW ever caught up with me IтАЩd have
only myself to blameтАж me, myself, and I. We are not amused .
YarrowтАЩs hand picked up ETHANACтАЩs suitcase obligingly: I
stumbled off to the bathroom to make myself fit for human
company.


тАЬIn XanaduтАЭтАФaccording to Samuel Taylor ColeridgeтАФтАЬdid Kubla
Khan a stately pleasure dome decree: where Alph, the sacred river,
ran through caverns measureless to man, down to a sunless sea.тАЭ
The original may have existed only in ColeridgeтАЩs opium dreams,
but here on Mars the dream has come true, thanks to the limitless
funds and the boundless ego of Khorram Kabir. What dread secrets
do Khorram Kabir and Kubla Khan share? The same initials, for
one thingтАж But Kabir didnтАЩt want the comparison to end there.
Being the eccentric head of a multinational, multibillion-dollar
financial empire, you could say he qualified as an emperor. But he
wanted his own Xanadu; and like a true twenty-first-century
mogul, he created oneтАФand made certain it would pay.
Hence, the Xanadu, the pleasure dome extraordinary: luxury
hotel, resort, spaтАФand gambling casino. The old me had never been
a gambler, because I was just smart enough to realize what I was
really bad at. The new me, IтАЩd just discovered, was a little too smart
for my own good. IтАЩd actually believedтАФand maybe it was
trueтАФthat IтАЩd only come here to watch the rain. IтАЩd been on Mars
for nearly an Earth year, but because of my peculiar status IтАЩd
never had the nerve to visit the Tourist Belt before. But the whole
reason IтАЩd ended up on Mars in the first place was the simple desire
to see more of the worldтАФany world. And for an entire year IтАЩd been
listening to the ecstatic accounts of how my various buddies in
software maintenance had reduced their credit to zero in one
glorious blowout at the Xanadu. And finally I couldnтАЩt stand it any
moreтАФ
But now, as I stepped out of the lift bubble at the lobby, my
common sense was trying to tell me that I should just cut my
vacation short, just pack up my money and steal silently back to
the Arab territories. Except that someone was waiting to see me. I
didnтАЩt know anyone here whoтАЩd want to see me, for any good reason;
and yet my curiosity was tingling like a catтАЩs. All my life IтАЩd
believed that someday some stranger would come up to me in a
cafeteria and tell me that I was a long-lost heir, or in a subway
station, and tell me IтАЩd won the National Lottery. Or in the Hotel
Xanadu, and tell me I was under arrestтАж?
In spite of that, I crossed the crowded lobby to the information
center. The floor of the lobby, which is a good one hundred and fifty
meters across, is a hand-laid mosaic. Radiating out from the main
desk are scenes of ancient Oriental splendor; it made me mildly
uncomfortable to step on peoplesтАЩ faces. But then that was probably
what the original Xanadu had been all aboutтАж Behind me in the
elevator shaft, drifting spheres of colored glass carried guests from