"Gardner Dozois - Horse Of Air (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dozois Gardner)

will be safe and comfortable regardless. They are the bright, ambitious technicians; let them
cope. They are the expendable soldiers; let them fight and be expended as they are paid for doing;
we shall be safe behind the lines. Let them have the mime show of power; we are civilized enough
to enjoy the best things of life without it. We renounce the painted dreams; they are hollow.

It was a mistake.

It was a mistake to give them the voting proxies; Anderson was a fool, senile before his time. It
was all a horrible mistake. I admit it. But we were no longer young.

And the world worsened, and one day the Building Committee came.

It was crisis, they said, and Fear was walking in the land. And the Charter specified that we were


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to be protected, that we must not be disturbed. So they came with the work crews and meshed over
my balcony. And welded a slab of steel over my door as they left. They would not listen to my
protest, wrapped in legalities, invulnerable in armor of technical gobbledygook. Protection was a
specific of the Charter, they said, and with the crisis this was the only way they could ensure
our protection should the outer defenses go down; it was a temporary measure.

And the work crews went about their business with slapdash efficiency, and the balding, spectacled
foreman told me he only worked here. So I stood quietly and watched them seal me in, although I
was trembling with rage. I am no longer young. And I would not lose control before these vermin.
Every one of them was waiting for it, hoping for it in their petty, resentful souls, and I would
let myself be flayed alive before I would give them the satisfaction. It is a small comfort to me
that I showed them the style with which a gentleman can take misfortune.

(When I finally realize what they are doing, I rage and bluster. The foreman pushed me away. "It's
for your own good," he says, mouthing the cliche halfheartedly, not really interested. I beat at
him with ineffectual fists. Annoyed, he shrugs me off and ducks through the door. I try to run
after him. One of the guards hits me
in the face with his rifle butt. Pain and shock and a brief darkness. And then I realize that I am
lying on the floor. There is blood on my forehead and on my mouth. They have almost finished
maneuvering the steel slab into place, only a man-sized crack left open. The guard is the only one
left in the room, a goggled technician just squeezing out through the crack. The guard turns
toward the door. I hump myself across the room on my knees, crawling after him, crying and
begging. He plants his boot on my shoulder and pushes me disgustedly away. The room tumbles, I
roll over twice, stop, come up on my elbows and start to crawl after him again. He says, "Fuck
off, dad," and slaps his rifle, jangling the magazine in the breech. I stop moving. He glares at
me, then leaves the room. They push the slab all the way closed. It makes a grinding, rumbling
sound, like a subway train. Still on my knees, I throw myself against it, but it is solid. Outside
there are welding noises. I scream.)

There is a distant rumbling now. Thunder: the storm is getting nearer. The lightning flashes are
more intense, and closer together. They are too bright, too fast, blending into one another,