"A Case Of Consilience" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacLeod Ken)

"I can laugh at myself too," said Donald. "But I feel the same way as you did—in
my case at the suggestion that the Son was not unique, that He took on other
forms, and so forth. I can hardly even say such things. I literally shudder. But
I can't accept, either, that He has no meaning beyond Earth. So what are we to
make of rational beings who are not men, and who may be sinners?"
"Perhaps they are left outside," said Qasim. "Like most people are, if I
understand your doctrines."
Donald flinched. "That's not what they say, and in any case, such a question is
not for me to decide. I'm perplexed."
He leaned back in the seat and stared gloomily at the empty can, and then at the
amused, sympathetic eyes of the friendly scoffer to whom he had found he could
open up more than to the believers on the Station.
Qasim stood up. "Well, thank God I'm an atheist, that's all I can say."
He had said it often enough.
"God and Bush," said Donald. This taunt, too, was not on its first outing.
Attributing to the late ex-President the escalating decades-long cascade of
unintended consequences that had annexed Iraq to the EU and Iran to China was
probably unfair, but less so than blaming it on God. Qasim raised a mocking
index finger in response.
"God and Bush! And what are you having, Donald?"
"Can of Export."
"Narrow it down, padre. They're all export here."
"Aren't we all," said Donald. "Tennent's, then. And a shot of single malt on the
side, if you don't mind. Whatever's going."
As Qasim made his way through the crowd to the bar, Donald reflected that his
friend was likely no more off-duty than he was. A chaplain and an intelligence
officer could both relax in identical olive T-shirts and chinos, but vigilance
and habit were less readily shrugged off than dress-codes. The Kurdish colonel
still now and again called his service the mukhabarat. It was one of his running
gags, along with the one about electronics and electrodes. And the one about
extra-terrestrial intelligence. And the one about… yes, for running gags Qasim
was your man.
As I am for gloomy reflections, Donald thought. Sadness, tristia, had been one
of the original seven deadly sins. Which probably meant every Scottish
Presbyterian went straight to hell, or at least to a very damp purgatory, if the
Catholics were right. If the Catholics were right! After three hundred and
seventeen days in the Extra-Terrestrial Contact Station, this was among the
least heretical of the thoughts Donald Maclntyre was willing to countenance.
Qasim came back with the passing cure, and lasting bane, of the Scottish sin;
and with what might have been a more dependably cheering mood-lifter: a gripe
about his own problems. Problems which, as Donald listened to them, seemed more
and more to resemble his own.
"How am I supposed to tell if an underground fungoid a hundred meters across
that communicates by chemical gradients is feeding us false information? Or if
an operating system written by an ET AI is a trojan? Brussels still expects
files on all of them, when we don't even know how many civs we're dealing with.
Bloody hell, Donald, pardon my English, there's one of the buggers we only
suspect is out there because everyone comes back from its alleged home planet
with weird dreams." Qasim cocked a black eyebrow. "Maybe I shouldn't be telling
you that one."