"C. Sanford Lowe & G. David Nordley - The Small Pond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lowe C Sanford)

All right, Judi! Liz quickly wiped off her smile, nodded smartly, and climbed
into the spacecraft.
****
Liz catnapped and watched the Canning news feed on her thirty-hour journey.
Gunheim’s handpicked team was at least twelve hours behind her—Cyan had
managed to hold things back for almost two hours, and it had taken another nine
hours to get an interplanetary shuttle.
Liz followed the news for a while. The politics had gone as predicted with
Gunheim criticizing Cyan for mismanagement and Cyan patiently explaining how
things had developed—making sure the media ‘uncovered’ how Peal had used
Gunheim’s influence to amass a lot of robotic parts with little oversight. Gunheim
had started talking about project fanaticism on the part of some people and how
human life had to come first and how everything had to be on the table as long as
people’s lives were at stake. Cyan had quietly asked just how much people were
willing to be governed by terrorists.
****
It was late at night when Canning Base spaceport passenger-access-tube
snaked its way to Liz’s shuttle. The only one to meet her at the inner door was Todd
“Mac” MacGregor, a nervous, sandy-haired young medic whose wife was one of
the hostages.
“Why,” he asked, “is this impactor schedule so damn important?”
Liz bit her lip and answered carefully. “The impactor your people are
making,” Liz explained, “has to match perfectly the other impactors in density and
dimension as well as velocity to produce the necessary symmetry at the impact
point. It’s slow work, even for robots, and once our margin is used up, no way to
make up the time. Peal has cut off the flow of iron to its assemblers, so we’ve
already lost most of the margin. Further delay could ruin the efforts of thousands of
people over the last four decades.”
“My wife...”
Liz shook her head. “If he gets away with this, it will just be something else
next time. We have to deal with it now.”
“How? Peal’s a master of robot technology.”
Her mind suddenly clicked. “That’s it! Mac...”
“What?”
“Technology. He’d look for a technological assault, not a physical one! I
could offer to exchange myself for as many hostages as he’s willing to let go. Once
I’m in ... he’s low-gee soft and maybe thirty kilos overweight. I train to one gee. I
could take him out with my bare hands.”
The young medic looked aghast. “And maybe you’ll get yourself killed! He
has robots and the ability to get around the laws of robotics.”
Liz nodded, almost surprised at herself. “He’s got the project by the throat,
and I promised I’d get it done. It’s worth taking the chance.” Liz stared at him a
moment and made a decision. “Mac, can you give me an edge?” There was a drug,
she knew, that would give a person “hysterical” strength, enough to lift beams off
people crushed in a structure collapse, or pull open a locked door to safety.
“A gamma stimulant? They’re illegal...”
“They’re for emergencies. This is an emergency.”
 He tightened his lips, then said, “Okay, it’s worth a try. You getting killed
wouldn’t put my wife in any more danger, and might get her out right away.” He
paused and nodded, apparently making up his mind. “Wait a moment. I need to get