"Foster, Alan Dean - Dream Done Green" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

"Just one?"
"One will be quite sufficient."
Alround depressed a switch on his desk. A red light flashed on, indicated that all details of the conversation to follow were now being taken down for the Imperial records.
"Purpose of purchase?"
"Development."
"Name of world?"
"Earth."
"All right . . . fine," said the subminister. Abruptly, he looked confused. Then he smiled. "Many planers are called Earth by their inhabitants or discoverers. Which particular Earth is this?"
"The Earth. Birthplace of mankind and malkind. Old Earth. Also known variously as Terra and Sol III."
The subminister shook his head. "Never heard of it."
"It is available, though?"
"We'll know in a second." Alround studied the screen in his desk.
Actually it took several minutes before the gargantuan complex of metal and plastic and liquid buried deep in the soil beneath them could come up with a reply.
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Dream Done Green
"Here it is, finally," said Alround. "Yes, it's available ... by default, it seems. The price will be . . ." He named a figure which seemed astronomical to Casperdan and insanely low to the horse.
"Excellent!" husked Pericles. "Let us conclude the formalities now."
"Per," Casperdan began, looking at him uncertainly. "I don't know if we have enough ..."
"Some liquidation* will surely be necessary, Casperdan, but we will manage."
The subminister interrupted: "Excuse me ... there's something you should know before we go any further. I can sell you Old Earth, but there is an attendant difficulty."
"Problems can be solved, difficulties overcome, obstructions removed," said the horse irritably. "Please get on with it."
Alround sighed. "As you wish." He drummed the required buttons. "But you'll need more than your determination to get around this one.
"You see, it seems no one knows how to get to Old Earth anymore ... or even where it is."
Later, strolling among the teeming mobs of Imperial City, Casperdan ventured a hesitant opinion.
"I take it this means it's not time for me to receive my part of the dream again?"
"Sadly, no, my friend."
Her tone turned sharp. "Well, what do you intend to do now? We've just paid quite an enormous number of credits for a world located in obscurity, around the corner from no place."
"We shall return to Calder," said the horse with finality, "and continue to expand and develop the company." He pulled back thick lips in an equine smile.
"In all the research I did, in all my careful planning and preparation, never once did I consider that the location of the home world might have been lost.
"So now we must go back and hire researchers to research, historians to historize, and ships to search
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and scour the skies in sanguine directions. And wait."
A year passed, and another, and then they came in small multiples. Dream Enterprises burgeoned and grew, grew and thrived. It moved out of the Stone Crescent and extended its influence into other quadrants. It went into power generation and multiple metallurgy, into core mining and high fashion.
And finally, of necessity, into interstellar shipping.
There came the day when the captain with the stripped-down scoutship was presented to Casperdan and the horse Pericles in their executive office on the two hundred and twentieth floor of the Dream building.
Despite a long, long, lonely journey the captain was alert and smiling. Smiling because the endless trips of dull searching were over. Smiling because he knew the company reward for whoever found a certain aged planet.
Yes, he'd found Old Earth. Yes, it was a long way off, and in a direction only recently suspected. Not in toward the galactic center, but out on the Arm. And yes, he could take them there right away.
The shuttleboat settled down into the atmosphere of the planet. In the distance, a small yellow sun burned smooth and even.
Pericles stood at the observation port of the shuttle as it drifted planetward. He wore a special protective suit, as did Casperdan. She spared a glance at the disconsolate mal. Then she did something she did very rarely. She patted his neck.
"You mustn't be too disappointed if it's not what you expected, Per." She was trying to be comforting. "History and reality have a way of not coinciding."
It was quiet for a long time. Then the magnificent head, lowered now, turned to face her, Pericles snorted bleakly.
"My dear, dear Casperdan, I can speak eighteen languages fluently and get by in several more, and
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Dream Done Green
there are no words in any of them for what I feel. 'Disappointment'? Consider a nova and call it warm. Regard Quaestor and label it well-off. Then look at me and call me disappointed."
"Perhaps," she continued, not knowing what else to say, "it will be better on the surface."
It was worse.
They came down in the midst of what the captain called a mild local storm. To Casperdan it was a neat slice of the mythical hell.
Stale yellow-brown air whipped and sliced its way over high dunes of dark sand. The uncaring mounds marched in endless waves to the shoreline. A dirty, dead beach melted into brackish water and a noisome green scum covered it as far as the eye could see. A few low scrubs and hearty weeds eked out a perilous existence among the marching dunes, needing only a chance change in the wind to be entombed alive.