"David Weber - In the Navy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

Mike tipped back in his chair and considered the face across his desk. It was the same face it had
always been, and yet, it wasn't. It hadn't changed as much as Jeff Higgins' face had, perhaps, but like
every face in Grantville, it had thinned down over the course of the last winter and its sometimes short
and always monotonous rations. Eddie had always been wiry; now he'd lost every ounce of excess
weight, yet his frame was well muscled from hard physical labor. More to the point, perhaps, that face
was no longer as young, as . . . innocent as it had been, and Mike felt a pang of deep, intense pain for the
loss of Eddie's last years of childhood.
But a lot of people had lost a lot of things, he reminded himself, and it looked as if Eddie was doing
a better job of growing into the reality he faced than Mike had realized when he came bursting into the
office. His pride in the concept he'd come up with was obvious, yet it was equally obvious that his offer
to turn it over to someone else who might be better qualified to make it work was genuine. Unfortunately,
there was no one in Grantville who was better qualified. The skills a project like this would call for
weren't the sort that were in much demand in a West Virginia coal mining town. To make it work, they
would have needed someone with some real expertise in mechanical engineering and heavy fabrication,
not to mention running complicated industrial projects. Better yet, someone with some genuine
experience with boats and ships. Best of all, someone with some idea about how a real navy worked.
Someone likeтАФ
Mike's thoughts broke off in a sudden mental hiccup, and he sat abruptly upright.
"What?" Eddie asked, and Mike shook his head the way he'd shaken off the effect of a particularly
good left jab during his days in the ring.
"I'm still not convinced that any of this is doable," he said slowly, contemplating Eddie through
half-slitted eyes. "But ifтАФif, I sayтАФit is, then it's possible that there's someone right here in town who'd
be perfectтАФ" He broke off and grimaced. "Let me rephrase that. It's possible that there's someone right
here in town who could actually make it work."
"There is?" Eddie looked puzzled. "Who?"
"The only person who has any experience at all with this kind of building project," Mike replied, and
grinned sourly as Eddie's eyes widened in dawning disbelief.
"That's right," the President of the United States said in a tone which matched his grin's sourness
perfectly. "I think we need to consult with my sister's esteemed father-in-law."
***
"Let me get this straight." John Chandler Simpson sat on the other side of a slightly battered-looking
table in an Appalachian kitchen and regarded Mike through narrow eyes. "You'reoffering me a job."
"I guess you could put it that way," Mike replied in a voice he tried to keep entirely free of any
emotion. His years of experience as a union negotiator helped, but it was still difficult. He'd seldom felt as
much antipathy for another human being as Simpson evoked, apparently effortlessly, from him.
He sat back in his own chair, letting his eyes rest on the framed prints which brightened Jessica
Wendell's friendly kitchen. He could think of very few settings which would have seemed less
appropriate for a meeting with the one-time president and CEO of the Simpson Industrial Group, but at
least Jessica's willingness to surrender her kitchen as an impromptu conference room had let him keep
this meeting out of the public eye.
Not that the present confidentiality would help much when Mike's cabinet found out what they were
discussing. He shuddered at the thought of how Melissa Mailey, for example, would react when she
discovered that her President had been negotiating anything at all with their arch enemy.
"I must confess," Simpson said after a moment in a poisonously dry tone, "that I find a certain
degree of irony in this."
"I doubt you find it any more ironic than I do," Mike told him levelly.
"Maybe not, but after the way you turned me into some sort of Antichrist in the elections, I have to
admire the sheer gall it must have taken for you to suggest anything of the sort."
"Gall doesn't come into it," Mike shot back, then shrugged his broad, powerful shoulders. "Look,
Simpson, I don't like you very much. And God knows you've made it plain enough that you like me even