"George R. R. Martin - With Morning Comes Mistfall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

I wasn't so sure of that, and was about to say so;'. when Dubowski arrived. Someone must have told him' I was there. He came striding out on the balcony,, smiling, spied me, and came over to sit down.
Sanders glared at him, and studied his drink. Dubowski trained all of his attention on me. He seemed very pleased with himself. He asked what I'd been do
ing since I left, and I told him, and he said that was nice.
Finally I got to ask him about his results. "No Comment," he said. "That's what I've called the press conference for."
"C'mon," I said. "I covered you for months when, everybody else was ignoring the expedition. You can' give me some kind of beat. What have you got?"
He hesitated. "Well, O.K.," he said doubtfully. "Bu don't release it yet. You can beam it out a few hours ahead of the conference. That should be enough time, for a beat."
I nodded agreement. "What do you have?"
"The wraiths," he said. "I have the wraiths, bagge
neatly. They don't exist. I've got enough evidence to
prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt." He smiled'
broadly. -
"Just because you didn't find anything?" I started.' "Maybe they were avoiding you. If they're sentient ;° they might be smart enough. Or maybe they're beyond the ability of your sensors to detect."
- "Come now," Dubowski said. "You don't believe
that. Our wraith traps had every kind of sensor we
could come up with. If the wraiths existed, they would'
have registered on something. But they didn't. We had
the traps planted in the areas where three of Sanders's
so-called sightings took place. Nothing. Absolutely
nothing. Conclusive proof that those people were see
Ing things. Sightings, indeed."
"What about the deaths, the vanishings?" I asked. "What about the Gregor Expedition and the other classic cases?"
His smile spread. "Couldn't disprove all the deaths, of course. But our probes and our searches turned up four skeletons." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Two were killed by a rockslide, and one had rockcat claw marks on the bones."
"The fourth?"
"Murder," he said. "The body was buried in a shallow grave, clearly by human hands. A flood of some sort had exposed it. It was down in the records as a disappearance. I'm sure all the other bodies could be found, if we searched long enough. And we'd find that all died perfectly normal deaths."
Sanders raised his eyes from his drink. They were bitter eyes. "Gregor," he said stubbornly. "Gregor and the other classics."
Dubowski's smile became a smirk. "Ah, yes. We searched that area quite thoroughly. My theory was right. We found a tribe of apes nearby. Big brutes. Like giant baboons, with dirty white fur. Not a very successful species, either. We found only one small tribe, and they were dying out. But clearly, that was what Gregor's man sighted. And exaggerated all out of proportion."
There was silence. Then Sanders spoke, but his voice was beaten. "Just one question," he said softly.. "Why?"
That brought Dubowski up short, and his smile faded. "You never have understood, have you, Sanders?" he said. "It was for truth. To free this planet from ignorance and superstition."
"Free Wraithworld?" Sanders said. "Was it enslaved?"
"Yes," Dubowski answered. "Enslaved by foolish myth. By fear. Now this planet will be free, and open. We can find out the truth behind those ruins now, without murky legends about halfhuman wraiths to

fog the facts. We can open this planet for colonization. People won't be afraid to come here, and live, and farm. We've conquered the fear."
"A colony world? Here?" Sanders looked amused "Are you going to bring big fans to blow away the mists, or what? Colonists have come before. And left The soil's all wrong. You can't farm here, with all these mountains. At least not on a commercial scale. There's no way you can make a profit growing things on Wraithworld.
"Besides, there are hundreds of colony worlds crying for people. Did you need another so badly? Must Wraithworld become yet another Earth?"
Sanders shook his head sadly, drained his drink, and continued. "You're the one who doesn't understand, Doctor. Don't kid yourself. You haven't freed Wraithworld. You've destroyed it. You've stolen its wraiths, and left an empty planet."
Dubowski shook his head. "I think you're wrong. They'll find plenty of good, profitable ways to exploit this planet. But even if you were correct, well, it's just too bad. Knowledge is what man is all about. People like you have tried to hold back progress since the beginning of time. But they failed, and you failed. Man needs to know."
"Maybe," Sanders said. "But is that the only thing man needs? I don't think so. I think he also needs mystery, and poetry, and romance. I think he needs a few unanswered questions, to make him brood and wonder."
Dubowski stood up abruptly, and frowned. "This conversation is as pointless as your philosophy, Sanders. There's no room in my universe for unanswered questions."
"Then you live in a very drab universe, Doctor."
"And you, Sanders, live in the stink of your own ignorance. Find some new superstitions if you must. But don't try to foist them off on me with your tales and legends. I've got no time for wraiths." He looked
at me. "I'll see you at the press conference," he said. Then he turned and walked briskly from the balcony.
Sanders watched him depart in silence, then swiveled in his chair to look out over the mountains. "The mists are rising," he said.
Sanders was wrong about the colony, too, as it turned out. They did establish one, although it wasn't much to boast of. Some vineyards, some factories, and a few thousand people; all belonging to no more than a couple of big companies.
Commercial farming did turn out to be unprofitable, you see. With one exception-a native grape, a fat gray thing the size of a lemon. So Wraithworld has only one export, a smoky white wine with a mellow, lingering flavor.
They call it mistwine, of course. I've grown fond of it over the years. The taste reminds me of mistfall somehow, and makes me dream. But that's probably me, not the wine. Most people don't care for it much.
Still, in a very minor way, it's a profitable item. So Wraithworld is still a regular stop on the spacelanes. For freighters, at least.
The tourists are long gone, though. Sanders was right about that. Scenery they can get closer to home, and cheaper. The wraiths were why they came.
Sanders is long gone, too. He was too stubborn and too impractical to buy in on the mistwine operations when he had the chance. So he stayed behind his ramparts at Castle Cloud until the last. I don't know what happened to him afterwards, when the hotel finally went out of business.
The castle itself is still there. I saw it a few years ago, when I stopped for a day en route to a story on New Refuge. It's already crumbling, though. Too expensive to maintain. In a few years, you won't be able to tell it from those other, older ruins.
Otherwise the planet hasn't changed much. The mists still rise at sunset, and fall at dawn. The Red