"Ian Watson - Slow Birds" - читать интересную книгу автора (Watson Ian)

his opportunity, Tarnover sidled quickly around Mrs. Babbidge and strode
off. She chuckled as she watched him go.
"That's put a kink in his sail!"



Forty-one other contestants, besides Jason and Tarnover, gathered
between the starting flags, though not the girl who had fallen. Despite all
best efforts she was out of the race, and sat morosely watching.
Then the Tuckerton umpire blew his whistle, and they were off.
The course was in the shape of a long bloomer loaf. First, it curved
gently along the edge of the glass for three quarters of a mile, then bent
sharply around in a half circle on to the straight, returning towards
Tuckerton. At the end of the straight, another sharp half circle brought it
back to the startingтАФand finishingтАФline. Three circuits in all were to be
skate-sailed before the victory whistle blew. Much more than this, and the
lag between leaders and stragglers could lead to confusion.
 By the first turn Jason was ahead of the rest of the field, and all his
practice since last year was paying off. His skates raced over the glass. The
breeze thrust him convincingly. As he rounded the end of the loaf,
swinging his sail to a new pitch, he noted Max Tarnover hanging back in
fourth place. Determined to increase his lead, Jason leaned so close to the
flag on the entry to the straight that he almost tipped it. Compensating, he
came poorly on to the straight, losing a few yards. By the time Jason swept
over the finishing line for the first time, to cheers from Atherton villagers,
Tarnover was in third position; though he was making no very strenuous
effort to overhaul, Jason realized that Tarnover was simply letting him act
as pacemaker.
But a skate-sailing race wasn't the same as a foot race, where a
pacemaker was generally bound to drop back eventually. Jason pressed on.
Yet by the second crossing of the line Tarnover was ten yards behind,
moving without apparent effort as though he and his sail and the wind
and the glass were one. Noting Jason's glance, Tarnover grinned and put
on a small burst of speed to push the front-runner to even greater efforts.
And as he entered on the final circuit Jason also noted the progress of the
slow bird, off to his left, now midway between the long curve and the
straight, heading in the general direction of Edgewood. Even the laggards
ought to clear the final straight before the thing got in their way, he
calculated.
This brief distraction was a mistake. Tarnover was even closer behind
him now, his sail pitched at an angle which must have made his wrists
ache. Already he was drifting aside to overhaul Jason. And at this moment
Jason grasped how he could win: by letting Tarnover think that he was
pushing Jason beyond his capacityтАФso that Tarnover would be fooled into
overexerting himself too soon.
"Can't catch me!" Jason called into the wind, guessing that Tarnover
would misread this as braggadocio and assume that Jason wasn't really
thinking ahead. At the same time Jason slackened his own pace slightly,
hoping that his rival would fail to notice, since this was at odds with his
own boast. Pretending to look panicked, he let Tarnover overtakeтАФand