"Anderson, Poul - Operation Luna" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

She shook herself, always an interesting sight, straightened in her
seat, and, slowly, smiled. "Well, it's probably nothing to fear. The
'chantments stand strong. I'd know if they didn't. Quite likely a troop
of Beings have simply come to watch, same as us."

She gestured downward. Our broom was descending. We could see hundreds
of others below, across the landscape, and their dismounted riders,
saintelmos shining on the ground or bobbing in hands, people talking or
snacking or smoking or tilting a bottle or staring, staring at the
vision. They'd come from Grants, Gallup, the pueblos, farms, ranches, as
far as Albuquerque and Santa Fe, maybe farther. Sure, they could've
stayed home and watched on the farseer, but this was history happening,
the first real flight of the beast that should eventually land humans on
yonder moon.

"If the Beings aren't friendly to what we're doing, why, neither are a
lot of our fellow Americans," Ginny went on. "In either case, they can't
help being fascinated." Her laughter chimed. "After all, what a show!"

That whipped my dim dreads off me. The crowd below was heartening, too.
They weren't ideologues yammering about Tower-of-Babel technoarrogance,
or demagogues whining about money that ought to be spent on their own
admirers, or intellectuals oh, so superior to everything less than the
critical deconstruction of James Joyce's Odysseus. They were ordinary,
working men and women, along with kids, students, dreamers-- and quite a
few tribesfolk, I saw--here because they'd decided for themselves that
going to the stars was a great idea.

In a way, too many had. Ruefulness quirked my lips. At the nth hour,
Ginny and I found that no babysitters would be available, not for any
price, not even her housecleaner, Audrey Becker, or Audrey's elderly
mother. Once we might have entrusted the job to her familiar, but
Svartalf was old and dozy, Edgar's sense of responsibility still
unproven.

So Valeria got stuck with riding herd on Ben and Chryssa. She'd looked
forward to witnessing the launch in person, with a fourteen-year-old's
intensity, and didn't take kindly to the change in plans. What we
offered in return hardly appeased her. We tried to be fair, but didn't
believe in begging or bribing children to do their duty. Not that Val
exploded, much. It wasn't her style. She'd brood, I knew. What would
come of that, I didn't know.

Our broom stopped in midair. After a moment the air said, "Pass" and we
continued. The checkspell had verified that we were entitled to go
within the perimeter. Its effectiveness was reassuring. In fact, I lost
my sense of outside presences, and soon more or less forgot about them.

My wife told me later that she did likewise, though I suspect she never
really became quite unaware of anything that ever come to her attention.