"Joe Haldeman - The Coming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Haldeman Joe)

The local section had an unlovely, but possibly useful, photoessay that showed the types of facial
mutilations that various local gangs used to tell one another apart. They were more like social clubs
nowadays, however fearsome the members looked. Ten years ago there was a lot of blood spilled. Now
they just have those strange tournaments, killing each other in virtual-reality hookups, with dozens playing
on each side. Why couldn't Europe do that?
The Coming 11
Too American, he supposed, though the Koreans had actually started it.
He folded up the paper as the news program started. The lead story was Detroit, of course. There
was dramatic footage of a water-dumping helicopter that was fired upon and had to drop its load a block
away from the fire and retreat. The crowd shots around the ruins of the police station showed little grief;
one group of boys was cheering, until they saw that the camera was on them, and scattered.
Rory's discovery hadn't made the lead, but it got more time than Detroit. It wasn't often they had a
story that was both interplanetary and local.
There was an interesting deja vu feeling to watching it, seeing which parts of the interview were
chosen, and how they were modified. They didn't actually monkey with Rory's responses, but some of
the questions were changed. Predictably, there was nothing about parallax or the noncoincidence of the
human minute being part of the signal; nothing about what the distance and speed implied. That would
come in a later broadcast. This seven o'clock one just established their scoop.
Nick had brought the ouzo and stood by Norman, watching the broadcast. "Your wife gonna be
famous?" he said. "She gonna still talk to you?"
"Oh, she'll talk to me." Norman sipped the ouzo and looked away from the screen, which was
featuring a graphic feminine hygiene commercial.
"Guys from outer space," Nick mused. " 'Bout time they admitted they was out there."
"Really."
"Sure—been in the papers since I was a kid. Damn air force shot one down a hundred years ago.
They got the dead aliens in a freezer."
"Nick. You don't believe that."
"It was in the paper," he said. "Hell, it was on the cube." He raised both eyebrows high and bent to
polish a table that was already spotless.
"This could be pretty big," Norman said. "Rory didn't think there was any way it could be a hoax.
Otherwise, she wouldn't have called the news."
"Well, you don't never know, do you?"
"I guess in about a week we'll find out. You wouldn't care to make a gentleman's bet?"
Nick stared at his reflection in the plastic tabletop and scowled comically. "Where you from, Mr.
Bell?"
"Boston."
"Well, I never make bets with people from Boston."
"I was actually born in Washington, D.C."
"You kiddin'? That's even worse."
The news picked up with outer space again. They'd had time to contact the Moon. A confused
Japanese astronomer, the one who had verified Rory's signal, was on live, providing more questions than
answers: What do you mean, message? Speed of light? Who is this Aurora Bell? Rory hadn't identified
herself personally, of course, she was just some code name like UF/GRB-1.
When the announcer explained to the scientist that Professor Bell had decoded the signal as "We're
coming," repeated sixty times, his eyes narrowed. "Is this some sort of a college prank?" Then someone
off-camera handed him a piece of paper. He stared at it for several seconds and then looked up. "We ...
um ... we apparently have verified the Florida analysis. "We're coming'?"
"So what does it mean, Dr. Namura?"
The delay was longer than the usual Earth-Moon time lag. He shook his head. "I suppose it means
they're coming. Whoever 'they' might be." He spread his hands in a gesture more Gallic than Oriental. "I