"James P. Hogan - Giants 3 - Giant's Star" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hogan James P)

dirty undershorts."
Heller smiled faintly. At least it was good that the differences that erupted across the
table in the conference room could be left there. Anything else would have made life intolerable
in the cramped, communal atmosphere of the base. "The shuttle from Tycho has just landed," she
said. "I wonder what's new."
"Yes, I know. No doubt some mail from Moscow and Washington for us to argue about
tomorrow." The original UN charter had ruled against representatives receiving instructions from
their national governments, but nobody at Farside kept up any pretenses about that.
"I hope not too much," she sighed. "We should be thinking of the future of the whole
planet. National politics shouldn't come into this." She glanced sideways as she spoke, searching
his face for a hint of a reaction. Nobody at Washington had yet been able to decide for sure if
the UN stance was being dictated from the Kremlin, or if the Soviets were simply playing along
with something they found expedient to their own ends. But the Russian remained inscrutable.
They came out of the corridor and entered the "common room"
-- normally the UNSA Officers' Mess, but assigned temporarily for off-duty use by the
visiting UN delegation. The air was warm and stuffy. A mixed group of about a dozen UN delegates
and permanent residents of the base was present, some reading, two engrossed in a chess game, and
the others talking in small groups around the room or at the small bar at the far end. Sobroskin
continued walking and disappeared through the far door, which led to the rooms allocated for
office space for the delegation. Heller had
intended going the same way, but she was intercepted by Niels Sverenssen, the delegation's
Swedish chairman, who detached himself from a small group standing near where they had entered.
"Oh, Karen," he said, catching her elbow lightly and steering her to one side. "I've been
looking for you. There are a few points from today's meeting that we ought to resolve before
finalizing tomorrow's agenda. I was hoping to discuss them before it's typed up." He was very tall
and lean, and he carried his elegant crown of silver hair with a haughty uprightness that always
made Heller think of him as the last of the true blue-blooded European aristocrats. His dress was
always impeccable and formal, even at Bruno where practically everyone else had soon taken to more
casual wear, and he gave the impression somehow of looking on the rest of the human race with
something approaching disdain, as if condescending to mix with them only as an imposition of duty.
Heller was never able to feel quite at ease in his presence, and she had spent too much time in
Paris and on other European assignments to attribute it simply to cultural differences.
"Well, I was on my way to check the mall," she said. "If the discussion can wait for an
hour or so, I could see you back here. We'll go through it over a drink maybe, or use one of the
offices. Was it anything important?"
"A few questions of procedure and some definitions that need clarifying under one or two


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headings." Sverenssen's voice had fallen from its public-address mode of a moment earlier, and as
he spoke he moved around as if to shield their conversation from the rest of the room. He was
looking at her with a curious expression
-- an intrigued detachment that was strangely intimate and distant at the same time. It
made her feel like a kitchen wench being looked over by a medieval lord-of-the-manor. "I was
thinking of something perhaps a little more comfortable later," he said, his tone now ominously
confidential. "Possibly over dinner, if I might have the honor."
"I'm not sure when I'll be having dinner tonight," she replied, telling herself that she
was getting it all wrong. "It might be late."