"Zelazny, Roger - My Name Is Legion" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zelazny Roger)

"Mister Schweitzer," he said, "Carol Deith would like to speak with you."
"Tell her I'm on my way," I said.
"All right," and he departed.
I combed my sort of blond hair and changed my shirt, because she was pretty and young. She was the ship's Security Officer, though, so I had a good idea as to what she was really after.
I walked to her office and knocked twice on the door.
As I entered, I bore in mind the fact that it probably involved the J-9 and my doings of a half hour before. This would tend to indicate that she was right on top of everything.
"Hello," I said. "I believe you sent for me?"
"Schweitzer? Yes, I did. Have a seat, huh?" and she gestured at one on the other side of her expensive desk.
I took it.
"What do you want?"
"You repaired the J-9 this afternoon."
I shrugged. "Are you asking me or telling me?"
"You are not authorized to touch the thing."
"If you want, I can go back and screw it up and leave it the way I found it."
"Then you admit you worked on it?"
"Yes."
She sighed.
"Look, I don't care," she said. "You probably saved two lives today, so I'm not about to fault you for a security violation. What I want to know is something different."
"What?"
"Was it sabotage?"
And there it was. I had felt it coming.
"No," I said. "It was not. There were some short circuits ... "
"Bull," she told me.
"I'm sorry. I don't understand ... "
"You understand, all right. Somebody gimmicked that thing. You undid it, and it was trickier than a couple of short circuits. And there was a bomb. We monitored its explosion off the port bow about half an hour ago."
"You said it," I said. "I didn't."
"What's your game?" she asked me. "You cleaned up for us, and now you're covering up for somebody else. What do you want?"
"Nothing," I said.
I studied her. Her hair was sort of reddish and she had freckles, lots of them. Her eyes were green. They seemed to be set quite far apart beneath the ruddy line of her bangs. She was fairly tall, like five-ten, though she was not standing at the moment I had danced with her once at a shipboard party.
"Well?"
"Quite well," I said. "And yourself?"
"I want an answer."
"To what?"
"Was it sabotage?"
"No," I said. "Whatever gave you that idea?"
"There have been other attempts, you know."
"No, I didn't know."
She blushed suddenly, highlighting her freckles. What had caused that?
"Well, there have been. We stopped all of them, obviously. But they were there."
"Who did it?"
"We don't know."
"Why not?"
"We never got hold of the people involved."
"How come?"
"They were clever."
I lit a cigarette.
"Well, you're wrong," I said. "There were some short circuits. I'm an electrical engineer and I spotted them. That was all, though."
She found one someplace, and I lit it for her.
"Okay," she said. "I guess I've got everything you want to tell me."
I stood then.