"Engines Of God" - читать интересную книгу автора (Макдевитт Джек)

3 Arlington. Saturday, May 8; 0915 hours

The chime brought her out of a warm, silky dream. She fumbled at the lamp stand and touched the commlink. "Yes?"

"Hutch?" Richard's voice. "They tell me you're the pilot for the Temple flight."

"Yes," she said sleepily.

"Good. I'll be going with you."

She came awake. That was a pleasant surprise. She had not been looking forward to a month alone rattling around in Wink. "I'm delighted to hear it," she said. But she wondered why he'd bother. This was strictly an evacuation run.

"I'd have asked for you in any case," he was explaining.

"And I'd have appreciated the business." Hutch was a contractor, not an employee of the Academy. "Why are you going?"

"I want to see Oz," he said.

Richard signed off. Below, a tour boat with a canvas awning circled Republic Island, leaning to port while its passengers crowded the rail. They carried umbrellas against a light rain that had been falling all morning. They munched sandwiches, and dragged windbreakers for which they had no need. A fat man in a misshapen gray sweater sat in back, feeding gulls.

A brisk wind disturbed the surface of the river. Richard watched from his air taxi. Brightly colored pennants fluttered along both beams. A young couple on the starboard side paid far more attention to each other than to the monument. On the island, a group of kids, shepherded by a harried woman with a cane, trailed blue and red balloons. The fleet of sailboats that usually filled the river had not appeared. The fat man crumpled a white bag and opened another. He looked at peace with the world.

Richard envied him. Feed the gulls, and enjoy the monuments.

The taxi banked west. Constitution Island lay to his right, with its cluster of public buildings. The old Capitol had all but vanished into the rising mist. The Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Brockman monuments stood serenely on their embankments. And the White House: nothing in D.C. quite stirred the emotions like the sight of the former executive mansion, defiant behind its dikes. Old Glory still flew, rippling above the green and white banner of the North American Union. This was the only site in the country where the national colors gave precedence to another flag. Lights burned in the towers along the Arlington shore. The air taxi swung in a wide arc toward the Virginia side Richard reluctantly turned his thoughts to the coming ordeal. He disliked confrontations. He was accustomed to deference, to people who listened politely and, if they disagreed, knew how to respond without being disagreeable. Norman Caseway, CEO of Kosmik, Inc., was the prime mover behind the Second Earth initiative. And he could be expected to show no such fastidiousness. Caseway was no respecter of per-sons. He was an alley fighter, a brawler who enjoyed leaving hoofmarks on opponents. He particularly relished assaulting academic types, as several of Richard's colleagues had discovered to their dismay.

Richard had never met Caseway. He'd seen his antics on NET. A few weeks ago, he'd watched him demolish poor old Kinsey Atworth, an economist whose tongue was not as quick as his brain. Caseway's strategy was to attack the motives of anyone who opposed him, to mock, to sneer, to enrage. And then to back off coolly while his opponent sputtered and self-destructed. The man enjoyed humiliating people. Always speaks highly of you, Ed had said. He's read your books.

He passed over Potomac Island and the Pentagon, and descended toward Goley Inlet. The taxi rolled in a wide, lazy spiral and landed atop the Crystal Twins. Richard's restraints snapped open, and the hatch slid back, He inserted his card into the reader. The taxi thanked him, wished him good day. He stepped out into warm, sluggish air, and the taxi lurched skyward, far more quickly than it would have with a passenger aboard. It turned south toward Alexandria and soared quickly over the hotels.

Norman Caseway lived with his wife and daughter in what the Towers was pleased to call its Observatory Suite, a lush penthouse that occupied parts of two floors. He was greeted at the door by an attractive middle-aged woman. "Dr. Wald? We're happy you could come." The smile was perfunctory. "I'm Ann Caseway."

"Pleased to meet you." She did not offer her hand, and Richard detected a stiffness which seemed alien to her appearance. Ann Caseway was, he judged, a woman both congenial and casual. Under normal circumstances.

"My husband's waiting for you in his office."

"Thank you." He followed her into a reception room, tastefully decorated with embroidered wall-hangings and Caribbean basket-chairs, and a curved springwood table.

Long windows overlooked the Potomac, and the ceiling was vaulted glass. The overall display of wealth and success was calculated to intimidate visitors. Richard smiled at the transparency of the tactic. Still, reluctantly, he recognized that it did affect him.

"This must be difficult for you," she said smoothly. "Norman hoped it might be possible to talk things out with someone at your level." There was the barest hint of regret, not unmixed with satisfaction, in her voice. Regret perhaps that Richard would be an unseemly victim to throw to her husband, satisfaction stemming from the end of the long argument with the Academy over Quraqua, with its threats of court battles and sequestration of funds. Nice to see the enemy at the door, hat in hand.

Damn the woman.

She led him through a conference room filled with Kosmik trophies and memorabilia, photos of Caseway with famous people, Caseway signing documents, Caseway cutting ribbons. Awards, certificates of appreciation from charities and public organizations, plaques from government agencies, were present in such profusion that they overflowed the walls and lay in piles. An antique dark-stained roll top desk dominated the room. It was shut, but a framed news bulletin, with a photo, stood prominently on its top. The bulletin, dated thirty years before, read: BRAINTREE MAN RESCUES BOY WHO FELL THROUGH ICE. The hero in the photo was a young Caseway.

"This way, please." She opened an inner door and sunlight blinded him. This wasn't the feeble mid-May sunlight of Virginia. Nor even of a summer day in New Mexico. This was off-Earth sunlight. Naked white sunlight. She handed him a pair of dark glasses.

"Welcome, Dr. Wald." The voice, rich, precise, confident, came from within the glare.

A sand dune half-blocked the doorway. A hologram, of course. Richard strolled directly through the dune (which was not playing the game), and stepped into a desert. The room was air-conditioned. Flat sand stretched to the horizon.

A few feet away, Norman Caseway sat in one of two wing chairs behind a coffee table. A bottle of Burgundy and two goblets were on the table. One was half-full.

He was well turned-out—red jacket, tie, neatly pressed dark blue trousers. Dark lenses hid his eyes. Behind him, rising out of the desert, was Holtzmyer's Rock.

Caseway filled Richard's glass. "I hope you don't mind that I started without you."

They were on Pinnacle. Holtzmyer's Rock looked like a gigantic washed-out red onion rooted in the sand. It stood more than thirty meters high, eight stories. The original was composed of individual pieces of stone, so cunningly fitted that the seams were not visible without close inspection. The object had been dated at almost a million years. Arnie Holtzmyer, who'd stumbled on it almost twenty-two years ago, had been the least competent professional Richard had known. Had the sand been a little higher, Arnie would never have seen it.

The intent of its builders was unknown. It was solid rock, with four inner chambers but no means of reaching them. The chambers were empty, and did not seem to have any geometric order.

"What did you feel when you came to this place?" Caseway's voice, breaking into his reverie, startled him.

"Its age," Richard said, after a moment's reflection. "It felt old."

"You didn't mention that. In your book."

"I didn't think it was important."

"You were writing for the general public. About a structure that seems to be unique on Pinnacle. Nobody knows what its purpose was. Or anything about it. What else was there to talk about except your feelings?"

The book was Midnight on Pinnacle. Richard had dwelt on brick texture, on the discoloration near the top that suggested a long delay during construction. He had made observations relating to the geometry of the object, and drew inferences from the fact that it stood alone. He had traced the geological history of the land on which it rested, pointing out that it had probably been a prairie at the time of construction. He had provided graphs showing how long it had been buried. And described recent wind action which had uncovered the object for Amie.

"I'd like to go out there myself some day." Caseway rose and offered a hand. "I'm pleased to meet you, Dr. Wald. Glad you could find time to come by."

Richard was thinking of the inadequacies of holograms. You can't sip wine out near Holtzmyer's Rock. On the other hand, when he had stood in a high wind years ago and pressed his fingertips against the blistered stone, he had been shielded from the heat by his Flickinger field. The sand had rattled against the energy envelope, and the wind had tried to blow him over. Like Caseway, he had never really been there.

"Yes. Well, I needed to talk to you." Richard was naturally gregarious. Despite the years that make cynics of most people, he believed everyone could be reasoned with. He took the proffered hand and squeezed it warmly.

Caseway was a small, heavy man in late middle age. He reminded Richard of a master chess player he had once known, a man of infinite deliberation. He observed all the courtesies, and his manner suggested that he had taken the moral high ground, and that they both knew it. His voice filled with passion, and Richard understood that he was dealing with no empty opportunist. Norman Caseway perceived himself as a benefactor of the species.

"Please, sit down." His host turned his chair to face him. "I assume you'd like to talk about Project Hope."

Right to the point. Richard tasted his Burgundy. "Apparently, Mr. Caseway, there's been some bitterness."

"My friends call me Norman. And that's something of an understatement, Richard."

Richard folded his hands across his waist. "I would have preferred it otherwise."

"Doubtless. So would I. You should know Horner went behind my back. Tried to pull political strings."

"Ed means well. Maybe it didn't occur to him to just ask."

"I think he needs new advisors." Caseway looked out across the desert. "Does he listen to you!"

"Sometimes."

"Tell him that if it had been possible to oblige him, I would have done so. If he had been willing to approach me directly. And talk to me."

"What you're saying is that it would have made no difference."

Caseway's lips tightened. "None," he said. "Under the circumstances, I really have no choice but to proceed."

"I see."

"If it's any consolation, I take no pleasure in this. I understand the archeological value of Quraqua. And I have a reasonable idea what we stand to lose. But you have had twenty-eight years on that world—"

"That's a long time in a man's life. Mr. Caseway. But it is very short when we are trying to reconstruct the history of an entire world."

"Of course." He smiled at Richard's persistence in using the formal address. But he refused to take offense. "Nevertheless, there are pressing considerations. We are not entirely free to choose our time frames." He sipped his drink. "What a marvelous place Pinnacle must be. I wonder what they were like."

"We'll know eventually. We are already able to make reasonable assumptions. We know they believed in survival beyond the grave. We know they valued mountaintops and seacoasts. We know they succeeded in eliminating war. We even know something about their music. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about a private corporation seizing the world."

"I understand." Caseway looked genuinely regretful. "I envy you. I don't know anyone who has a more interesting line of work. And I would oblige you in a moment, if I could."

"It would be to everyone's benefit." He wished they were somewhere else, away from the glare. He would have preferred being able to see Caseway's eyes. He took his own glasses off to emphasize the gravity of the moment. "The last of the natives on Quraqua died off probably about the middle of the seventeenth century. They were all that was left, scattered in dying cities around their world, of a prosperous and vital web of civilizations that spanned their globe only three thousand years ago. We don't know what happened to them. They collapsed, over a short period of time. Nobody knows why. They were technologically backward, by our standards. Which should have helped them survive, because they were still close to their roots, and not vulnerable to the kinds of problems we've experienced."

"It wasn't all that sudden," Caseway said. "It happened over centuries."

"No." Richard took the initiative. "Those are assumptions, put out by people who think it had to happen that way, because some of these civilizations were not connected, and should not all have gone down at the same time. But it's as if someone turned off a light."

Caseway thought it over. "Epidemic."

"Maybe. Whatever it was, the old order went to its knees, and never recovered. Twenty-five hundred years later, the species became extinct."

"Well." Caseway crossed one knee over the other, and scratched an ankle. "Maybe it's the Toynbee factor. Their species exhausted itself."

"That's a non-explanation."

"Richard—" Caseway paused. "I would like to know what happened on Quraqua as much as anyone. But the deluge is upon us. We have no time left for academic niceties."

"What deluge?"

Caseway looked momentarily startled. "Tell me," he said, "what you see in the future for us? For mankind?"

"We've always blundered through. I'm optimistic."

"I fear I have the advantage of you: I've read your books, and you speak often of the future. Unusual in an archaeologist, I would think. No, no; no protest please. I'm less sanguine than you are. And perhaps more of a realist. We have virtually unlimited power now. And we have the experience of the convulsions of the last two centuries. What good has it done us? You and I live well. But people continue to starve in frightful numbers; much of the damage to the environment has proved remarkably intractable; population is approaching the levels that preceded the Collapse." He stared pensively into his wine. "We have eliminated active warfare, but only because the League has the weapons. The Poles still hate the Russians, the Arabs hate the Jews, the People of Christ hate everybody. It's as if we've learned nothing."

"And the only solution is your Utopia on Quraqua."

"Yes. We select a small group. Leave the old animosities behind. Start over. But start over, knowing what we know now. That way, we may have a future. Earth surely does not."

Richard shrugged. "It's an old idea, Norman. But even if I grant you the premise, why the big hurry? Why not take the time to see what we can team from Quraqua? Then terraform away."

"Because it may already be too late."

"Nonsense."

"Not at all. Listen: the first step, which will happen in a few weeks, is to melt the icecaps. From that moment, it will be a half-century, at best, before the first member of the pilot colony sets foot on Quraqua. Fifty years, Richard. Middle of the century. What do you suppose will be going on by then?"

"Who knows?"

"Who indeed? Will political conditions be stable? Will there be money? Will the technology still exist?" Caseway shook his head. "Our experts predict a second Collapse within thirty years. Time is very much against us. Even today, we will be fortunate to bring this off. To create and populate a new world. But if we don't, I suspect we'll end very much like your Quraquat."

"It's a scheme. Leave the old animosities behind. You can't do that unless you find a way to leave their human nature behind. And you're prepared to sacrifice a major source of knowledge to this aberration." Damn the man and his arrogant smile. "Granting your premise, there will be other worlds. Why not be patient? Why not wait for a world you won't have to terraform?"

"Can you guarantee the discovery of a reasonable habitat within the next half-century?"

"Guarantee? Of course not. But there's a good chance."

"Perhaps you wouldn't object if we settled on Inakademeri? And kicked the Noks off?"

Richard stood. "I'm sorry to find you so determined."

"And I to find you so obtuse. But you're right: I am determined. Determined to see that we get another chance. And you must understand, this may be the only window. Delay, back off to save your pots on Quraqua, and someone may find a better way to spend the money. Once that happens, the game is over."

"It is not a game." He banged the glass down, shattering it. Gingerly he released the broken stem and mumbled an apology.

Caseway laid his handkerchief on the spilled wine. "It's quite all right," he said. "You were saying—?"

Richard plunged ahead: "Norman, there is potentially explosive information at the Temple of the Winds."

Caseway nodded. "And what is the nature of this information?"

"We have evidence there was a contact between the Quraquat and the Monument-Makers."

His eyebrows rose. That had hit home. "What sort of evidence?"

Richard showed him a copy of the Tull bas-relief.

"It's hard to be sure," Caseway said. He pointed over Richard's shoulder and the desert vanished. They were seated in a modest wood-paneled room, bare save for the two chairs and the coffee table. "Not that it matters. There are always good reasons to delay." His eyes narrowed. "Money. Political considerations. The promise of better technology next year. Did you follow the debates over whether we have the moral right to destroy an extraterrestrial ecology? The Committee for Common Decency almost got us canceled because we are subverting God's plan for Quraqua. Whatever that might be." His brow creased. "I know what you're saying. I even agree with you, up to a point. I should tell you that if I had my choice, I would go to Nok, take it over, and leave the Temple to you."

Later, when Richard replayed the conversation, the final remark chilled him, because it came from a man he had begun to like.

NEWS DESK

17 DEAD IN TEXAS TORNADO

Second Twister in Eight Days Levels Austin Modpark

HANNIMAN EXECUTED IN TENNESSEE

Accused Killer of 38 Defiant to the End

Small Group Protests Outside Prison

ITALY INDICTS SIX IN PAN-ARAB CASE

Chairman of Courleone Chemical Faces Twenty Years

(Related Story Follows)

BEN-HASSAN DENIES BIO-WARFARE CHARGES

Says Pan-Arab Union Wants Chemical Plant for Peaceful Purposes Charges Mossad Plot

"SISTER SANDWICH" RECEIVES LEGION OF MERIT French Recognize American Nun Who Brought Food to Paris During Famine Sister Mary of the Cross Led Thousands of Volunteers

ANTI-GRAVITY SAID TO BE POSSIBLE Research Team at Berlin May Be Closing In

Agriculture Moves North

RUSSIANS, CANADIANS DISCOVER CLIMATE SHIFT PROVIDES NEW FARMLANDS

Farmers in Both Areas Are Staking Claims (Related story follows)

MIDWEST WHEAT BELT MAY BE GONE FOREVER

Most Experts Say Changes Are Permanent NAU Note a Major Food Importer

WEINBERG METEOR LANDS ON MOON

Observers On Hand To Watch It Come In

First Time Ever That We Had Advance Information

(Related story follows.)

MOONBASE DEFENDERS WARN OF DANGER FROM

ASTEROIDS Lunar Teams Provide Safety from Falling Rocks, Says

Vice-President

20 MORE SPECIES DECLARED EXTINCT

IN OCTOBER BOLLIER QUITS AMID TEMPEST

Says Forests Beyond Recovery, Attacks Sanchez Brazilians Charge Theft, of Foundation Funds