"Anderson, Poul - Star Fox" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Poul)

II
1700 hours in San Francisco was 2000 in Washington, but Harold Twyman, senior senator from California and majority leader of United States representatives in the Parliament of the World Federation, was a busy man whose secretary could not arrange a sealed-call appointment any earlier on such short notice as Heim had given. However, that suited the latter quite well. It gave him time to recover from the previous night without excessive use of drugs, delegate the most pressing business at the Heimdal plant to the appropriate men, and study Vadбsz's evidence. The Magyar was still asleep in a guest room. His body had a lot of abuse to repair.
Shortly before 1700 Heim decided he was sufficiently familiar with the material Robert de Vigny had assembled. He clicked off the viewer, rubbed his eyes, and sighed. An assortment of aches still nibbled at him. OnceLord, it didn't seem very long ago!he could have weathered twenty times the bout he'd just been through, and made love to three or four girls, and been ready to ship out next morning. I'm at the awkward age, he thought wryly. Too young for antisenescence treatment to make any difference, too old forwhat? Nothing, by Satan! I simply sit too much these days. Let me get away for a bit and this paunch I'm developing will melt off. He sucked in his stomach, reached for a pipe, and stuffed the bowl with unnecessary violence.
Why not take a vacation? he thought. Go into the woods and hunt; he had a standing invitation to use Ian McVeigh's game preserve in British Columbia. Or sail his catamaran to Hawaii. Or order out his interplanetary yacht, climb the Lunar Alps, tramp the Martian hills; Earth was so stinking cluttered. Or even book an interstellar passage. He hadn't seen his birthplace on Gea since his parents sent him back to Stavanger to get a proper education. Afterward there had been Greenland Academy, and the Deepspace Fleet, and Earth again, always too much to do.
Sharply before him the memory rose: Tau Ceti a ball of red gold in the sky; mountains coming down to the sea as they did in Norway, but the oceans of Gea were warm and green and haunted him with odors that had no human name; the Sindabans that were his boyhood playmates, laughing just like him as they all ran to the water and piled into a pirogue, raised the wingsail and leaped before the wind; campfire on the island, where flames sprang forth to pick daoda fronds and the slim furry bodies of his friends out of a night that sang; chants and drums and portentous ceremonies; andand
No. Heim struck a light to his tobacco and puffed hard. I was twelve years old when I left. And now Far and Mor are dead, and my Sindabans grown into an adulthood which humans are still trying to understand. I'd only find an isolated little scientific base, no different from two score that I've seen elsewhere. Time is a one-way lane.
Besideshis aze dropped to the micros on his deskthere's work to do here.
Footfalls clattered outside the study. Glad of any distraction, Heim rose and walked after them. He ended in the living room. His daughter had come home and flopped herself in a lounger.
"Hi, Lisa," he said. "How was school?"
"Yechy." She scowled and stuck out her tongue. "Old Espinosa said I gotta do my composition over again."
"Spelling, eh? Well, if you'd only buckle down and learn"
"Worsen correcting spelling. Though why they make such a fuss about that, me don't know! He says the semantics are upwhacked. Old pickleface!"
Heim leaned against the wall and wagged his pipe stem at her. " 'Semantics' is a singular, young'un. Your grammar's no better than your orthography. Also, trying to write, or talk, or think without knowing semantic principles is like trying to dance before you can walk. I'm afraid my sympathies are with Mr. Espinosa."
"But Dad!" she wailed. "You don't realize! I'd have to do the whole paper again from go!"
"Of course."
"I can't!" Her eyes, which were blue like his ownotherwise she was coming to look heartbreakingly like Connieclouded up for a squall. "I got a date with DickOh!" One hand went to her mouth.
"Dick? You mean Richard Woldberg?" Lisa shook her head wildly. "The blaze you don't," Heim growled. "I've told you damn often enough you're not to see that lout"
"Oh, Dad! J-j-just because"
"I know. High spirits. I call it malicious mischief and a judge that Woldberg Senior bought, and I say any girl who associates with that crowd is going to get in trouble. Nothing so mild as pregnancy, either." Heim realized he was shouting. He put on his court-martial manner and rapped: "Simply making that date was not only disobedience but disloyalty. You went behind my back. Very well, you're confined to quarters for a week whenever you're not in school. And I expect to see your composition tomorrow, written right."
"I hate you!" Lisa screamed. She flung out of the lounger and ran. For a second the bright dress, slender body, and soft brown hair were before Heim's gaze, then she was gone. He heard her kick the door of her room, as if to make it open for her the faster.
What else could I do? he cried after her, but of course there was no reply. He prowled the long room, roared at a maid who dared come in with a question, and stalked forth to stand on the terrace among the roses, glaring across San Francisco.
The city lay cool and hazed under a lowering sun. From here, on Telegraph Hill, his view ranged widely over spires and elways, shining water and garden islands. That was why he had picked this suite, after Connie died in that senseless flyer smash and the Mendocino County house got too big and still. In the past year or so Lisa had begun to whine about the address being unfashionable. But the hell with her.
No. It was only that fourteen was a difficult age. It had to be only that. And without a motherHe probably should have remarried, for Lisa's sake. There'd been no lack of opportunity. But at most the affairs had ended as ... affairs ... because none of the women were Connie. Or even Madelon. Unless you counted Jocelyn Lawrie, but she was hopelessly lost in her damned peace movement and anywayStill, he could well be making every mistake in the catalogue, trying to raise Lisa by himself. Whatever had become of the small dimpled person to whom he was the center of the universe?
He glanced at his watch and swore. Past time to call Twyman.
Back in the study he had a wait while the secretary contacted her boss and sealed the circuit. He couldn't sit; he paced the room, fingering his books, his desk computer, 1% souvenirs of the lancer to whose command he had risen. Hard had it been to give up Star Fox. For a year after his marriage, he'd remained in the Navy. But that wouldn't work out, wasn't fair to Connie. He stroked a hand across her picture, without daring to animate it right now. Not hard after all, sweetheart. Well worth everything.
The phone chimed and the secretary said, "The senator is on the line, sir." Her image gave way to Twyman's distinguished gray head. Heim sat down, on the edge of the chair.
"Hello, Gunnar," Twyman said. "How's everything?"
"Comme ci, comme зa," Heim answered. "A little more ci than зa, I think. How's with you?"
"Rushed damn near to escape velocity. The Aleriona crisis, you know."
"Uh-huh. That's what I wanted to talk about"
Twyman looked alarmed. "I can't say much."
"Why not?"
"Well , .. well, there really isn't much to say yet. Their delegation has only been here for about three weeks, you remember, so no formal discussions have commenced. Diplomacy between different species is always like that. Such a fantastic lot of spadework to do, information exchange, semantic and xenological and even epistemological studies to make, before the two sides can be halfway sure they're talking about the same subjects."
"Harry," said Heim, "I know as well as you do that's a string of guff. The informal conferences are going on right along. When Parliament meets with the Aleriona, you boys on the inside will have everything rigged in advance. Arguments marshaled, votes lined up, nothing left to do but pull the switch and let the machine ratify the decision you've already made."
"Well, ah, you can't expect, say, the Kenyan Empire representatives to understand something so complex"
Heim rekindled his pipe. "What are you going to do, anyhow?" he asked.
"Sorry, I can't tell you."
"Why not? Isn't the Federation a 'democracy of states'? Doesn't its Constitution guarantee free access to information?"
"You'll have as much information as you want," Twyman snapped, "when we start to operate on an official basis."
"That'll be too late." Heim sighed. "Never mind. I can add two and two. You're going to let Alerion have New Europe, aren't you?"
"I can't"
"You needn't. The indications are everywhere. Heads of state assuring their people there's no reason to panic, we're not going to have a war. Politicians and commentators denouncing the 'extremists.' Suppression of any evidence that there might be excellent reason to go to war."
Twyman bristled. "What do you mean?"
"I've met Endre Vadбsz," Heim said.
"Who?oh, yes. That adventurer who claimsLook, Gunnar, there is some danger of war. I'm not denying that. Prance especially is up in arms, demonstrations, riots, mobs actually tearing down the Federation flag and trampling on it. We'll have our hands full as is, without letting some skizzy like him inflame passions worse."
"He's not a skizzy. Also, Alerion's whole past record bears him out. Ask any Navy man." '
"Precisely." Twyman's voice grew urgent. "As we move into their sphere of interest, inevitably there've been more and more clashes. And can you blame them? They were cruising the Phoenix region when men were still huddled in caves. It's theirs."
"New Europe isn't. Men discovered and colonized it."
"I know, I know. There are so many starsThe trouble is, we've been greedy. We've gone too far, too fast."
"There are a lot of stars," Heim agreed, "but not an awful lot of planets where men can live. We need 'em."