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

ordinary man, he wore his hair relatively long so it flopped over his forehead in a
careless, boyish way. In contrast, his bearing and reserve spoke of self-confidence
and authority.
A door opened revealing a room with a polished wood-grain table surrounded
by plush chairs. She walked in and gazed around; the walls, except for one, were
hung with real framed pictures of sailing vessels and spaceships. She smelled real
wood. The wall without pictures had a great box mounted on it with shiny brass
fittings—hinges and a hook. The wood was varnished so deep and lustrous that it
seemed still wet.
Captain DeRoot walked over to the box, lifted the hook, and swung its doors
open, revealing a black shiny surface. “Lights,” he said softly.
The lights went out, and as her eyes adapted, Liz could see stars slowly
spinning around, except for one bright one. A direct view window! “How...”
“The inner and outer windows line up during the coast phase,” Captain
DeRoot said. “Go ahead, try the telescope.”
She put the tube to her eye. After a slight adjustment of the length of the tube,
she brought the golden point of light into focus. “Oh! A bright violet star,” she said.
“It seems impossibly small and intense. Is that Lacaille 9352?”
“That is its communications laser, blue shifted by our velocity. By the way,
Roger Gunheim says Lacaille 9352 is called Campbell now, after an author who
wrote a novel about using solar energy to power space flight about three hundred
years ago. The planets were named after characters in it.”
She felt his hand find her waist in a gentle, if presumptuous way. Her heart
pounded. Was this really happening? She moved his hand away.
“I thought that wasn’t official,” she said, going back to the telescope.
“We’re a long way from the Interplanetary Astronomical Union.”
She felt his hand again.
Captain DeRoot laughed. “And, I am in charge here.”
 His hand moved up from her waist toward more intimate territory. It had been
a very long time since a man had touched her that way, and she felt both fear and
excitement. But her mind told her this was too soon, way too soon. Liz pulled one
hand free of the telescope and gently removed the captain’s hand.
She felt momentarily rattled. He clearly meant it in a friendly manner, she tried
to convince herself. Then she flashed back to the look on Judi’s face.
“You’re going to Campbell to take charge of the impactor project,” DeRoot
said, “to see that it gets made and flung toward the implosion site.”
“Yes.”
“There are people on site already with much more experience who can do
that.”
“Zhau Tse Wen sent me.”
Captain DeRoot quietly chuckled. “At the risk of paraphrasing myself, we’re a
long way from Dr. Zhau. The man in charge at Campbell is Roger Gunheim. He’s a
nice enough man as long as you do what he says.” DeRoot’s smile was genuine, but
his eyes were penetrating.
Liz carefully kept her voice level. “He’s got a whole colony to worry about. I
just have the BHP operation.”
“Roger is a good friend of mine. We’ve made the Sol-Centauri voyage twice
together, without hibernation. There is much time to think between the stars, about
how things are ... and how they should be. Now I could put in a good word for
you....”