"Nancy Kress - Art of War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kress Nancy)

“Yes. Still, be more circumspect. Even be more pleasant. I know what
his-tory lies between you two, but nonetheless she is—”

“Don’t say it!”

“—after all, your mother.”

****

The evidence of the meteor impact was visible long before the shuttle landed. The
impactor had been fifty meters in diameter, weighing roughly sixty thousand tons,
composed mostly of iron. If it had been stone, the damage wouldn’t have been
nearly so extensive. The main base of the Teli military colony had been vaporized
instantly. Subsequent shock waves and air blasts had produced firestorms that raged
for days and devastated virtu-ally the entire coast of 149-Delta’s one small continent.
Now, a month later, we flew above kilometer after kilometer of destruction.

General Anson had calculated when her deflected meteor would hit and had
timed her approach to take advantage of that knowledge. Some minor miscalculation
had led to an initial attack on her ship, but before the attack could gain force, the
meteor had struck. Why hadn’t the Teli known that it was coming? Their military
tech was as good as ours, and they’d colonized 149-Delta for a long time. Surely
they did basic space surveys that tracked both the original meteor trajectory and
Anson’s changes? No one knew why they had not counterdeflected, or at least
evacuated. But, then, there was so much we didn’t know about the Teli.

The shuttle left the blackened coast behind and flew toward the moun-tains,
skimming above acres of cultivated land. The crops, I knew, were rot-ting. Teli did
not allow themselves to be taken prisoner, not ever, under any circumstances. As
Human troops had forced their way into successive areas of the continent, the
agricultural colony, deprived of its one city, had simply committed suicide. The only
Teli left on 168-Beta occupied those areas that United Space Forces had not yet
reached.

That didn’t include the Citadel.

“Here we are, Captain,” the pilot said, as soldiers advanced to meet the
shuttle. “May I ask a question, sir?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Is it true this is where the Teli put all that art they stole from humans?”

“Supposed to be true.” If it wasn’t, I had no business here.

“And you’re a... an art historian?”

“I am. The military has some strange nooks and crannies.”

He ignored this. “And is it true that the Taj Mahal is here?”