"Robert F. Young - L'Arc de Jeanne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Young Robert F)

completely."
Hating himself, he waited while she dressed; then he led her out of the cave. It wasn't until she saw
the ship-to-ground sled that she appeared to guess the truth, but he had a firm grip on her arm and when
she tried to break away, she got nowhere. He forced her into the sled and sat down beside her. "I'm
sorry, Jeanne Marie," he said. "I hope someday you'll try to forgive me."
She did not look at him, nor did she say a word. The pilot got behind the controls and closed the
nacelle, and the little craft rose above Le Bois Feerique and became a moonbeam once again.
NOW HEAR THIS/NOW HEAR THIS/NOW HEAR THIS GGS AMBASSADRESS:
 10 9/MONTH, 2353
SUBJECT: TRIAL AND SENTENCING OF ONE JEANNE MARIE VALCOURIS,
CHARGED WITH INVOKING THE FORCES OF NATURE AND USING THEM TO
SUPPLEMENT THE LEGALIZED WEAPONS OF CIVILIZED WARFARE.
FINDINGS: 1) THAT THE FORCES OF NATURE, WHEN USED AGAINST MAN,
CONSTITUTE AN ACT OF GOD, AND THAT SUCH AN ACT IN THE TIME OF WAR IS
CONTRARY TO THE RULES LAID DOWN BY THE DEIMOS CONVENTION; 2) THAT A
CRIME OF THIS MAGNITUDE CANNOT BE ATONED FOR THROUGH ORDINARY
PUNITIVE PROCEDURE; 3) THAT JEANNE MARIE VALCOURIS DID KNOWINGLY
COMMIT THIS CRIME AND IS LIABLE FOR IT; AND 4) THAT THE VOICES WHICH
JEANNE MARIE VALCOURIS CLAIMS TO HEAR ARE AUDIO-VISUALIZATIONS SIMILAR
TO THOSE DESCRIBED BY FRANCIS GALTON, CIRCA A.D. 1883, AND HAVE NO
BEARING ON HER CRIME.
SENTENCE: JEANNE MARIE VALCOURIS, HAVING STEADFASTLY REFUSED TO
REVEAL TO THIS COURT THE TRUE NATURE OF THE WEAPON WHICH SHE EMPLOYED
AGAINST THE 97TH INFANTRY UNIT OF DROP XVI AND THE IDENTITY OF THE
PERSON OR PERSONS WHO SUPPLIED IT, SHALL, AT 0945 HOURS ON THE MORNING
OF 11 9/MONTH, 2353, BE ESCORTED FROM THE AMBASSADRESS'S BRIG TO THE
GREEN AND THERE BE SECURED TO A WOODEN STAKE, WHICH SHALL IN THE
MEANTIME HAVE BEEN ERECTED ON THE PLAZA, AND BE BURNED ALIVE BEFORE A
BATTERY OF RADIO-TELEVISION TRANSMITTERS WHICH WILL CARRY HER IMAGE
AND HER SCREAMS INTO EVERY LIVING ROOM ON CIEL BLEU.
ALL OFF-DUTY PERSONNEL ARE REQUESTED TO ATTEND.
D'Arcy was horrified.
Four hours had elapsed since he had turned Jeanne Marie over to Smith-Kolgoz and he had spent
them wandering about the Green, waiting for someone to remember his presence and arrange for his
return to the Watchdog. When the incredible announcement had appeared on the plaza's teletype screen,
he had been sitting under a nearby tree, thinking of Le Bois Feerique.
His first impulse was to storm O'Riordan's heavily guarded suite and kill the man with his bare hands.
He had badly underestimated the Reorganizer's ruthlessness and his resourcefulness and he had forgotten
that the laws of war, like all laws, could be manipulated to fit any and all situations and to effect whatever
result the manipulator desired to bring about. Jeanne Marie had provided O'Riordan with an ideal means
of bringing the inhabitants of Ciel Bleu to their knees, and he had intended to burn her at the stake all
along, whether she revealed the secret of the bow and arrows to him or not.
But D'Arcy did not act on the impulse. To have done so would have resulted not in O'Riordan's
death but his own, and Jeanne Marie would have been no better off than she had been before. His only
logical course of action was to concentrate his energies on rescuing her, and this he proceeded to do.
He was already in the right place. All he had to do was to conceal himself and wait till the right
moment. Night and day were strictly differentiated on the Ambassadress, and every evening at 1800
hours the artificial sunshine that bathed the Green during the day automatically diminished itself to a pale
glow that resembled starlight, and every evening at the same time, the taped birdsong that provided the
sonic background for the daylight hours automatically gave way to the taped pipings and stridulations of