"Bruce McAllister - Cold War" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcallister Bruce)

Cold War by Bruce McAllister
Bruce McAllister published his first story in 1963 and he made his first appearance in our pages in
the April 1968 issue. He is the author of two novels, Humanity Prime and Dream Baby. During the
1990s, we didn't hear much from him, but in recent years he has been very productive, with
stories appearing in Asimov's, Sci Fiction, not to mention "Hero: The Movie"and "The Boy in
Zaquitos"in recent issues of ours. He says he's working on a YA novel, The Dragons of Como. His
new one is a disquieting tale of what might have been (and what may yet still be).
****
During those decades we never really knew who was watching.

--Admiral William "Billy"Brandicoff, 1918-2000

One night when I was ten, too grown-up to sit between my mother and father in the front seat anymore,
my dad put us in the car at our house on San Diego Bay and began to drive through the night into the
northern part of the county and its vast scrub-brush emptiness.

My father was executive officer of the Navy laboratory high up on the peninsula, where civilian scientists
with top-secret clearances did their experiments day and night, though he'd never taken us there. It was
classified and he couldn't. But tonight, even if he wasn't wearing his uniform, he was taking us
somewhere, somewhere that felt secret.

He didn't say a thing as we drove. He didn't say, "I've got a surprise for you two,"or "This is going to be
a long drive, but I think it'll be worth it."He just drove while my mother told him about what the other
wives were doing for the Christmas dinner at the yacht club and how well I was doing in science and
social studies, and, well, yes, a little less well in math.

I don't remember whether we passed through a military gate. If we did, it was a simple one, barely there,
where a Marine guard in a booth, seeing the sticker on our car, saluted crisply, clicked his heels, as they
all did, and said, "Good evening, Sir."It wasn't heavy security or I'd remember that. It was just an endless
training base somewhere in the northern part of the county where, in the moonlight, my father drove and
drove and my mother and I tried to stay awake.

At one point we passed--I remember this--some barracks where moths and other bugs beat themselves
silly against the rafter lights, and a soldier, just one, lit a cigarette, paying no attention to the insects or us.
But after those barracks the endless chaparral just became more endless. I fell asleep, and I know my
mother did too because she stopped talking--something that was, as my uncles used to say with
affection, "a very rare thing."

When the road turned bumpy, I woke up, sat up, and we were on a dirt road. In the distance ahead was
a single yellowish light, the kind you always see on country roads, wondering who lives there and what
they're doing and whether they would ask you in if your car broke down. In that light there were people,
I always told myself; people different from me, but still people, and wasn't it an amazing thing, there in the
darkness, miles from anywhere, a light that told the universe there were human beings there?

When my father slowed at last, the light became a shack--the kind you'd imagine cowboys or
sheep-herders would live in, except for a bunch of antennas on its roof--and we stopped. My father still
said nothing. My mother was awake now, too, and we got out.

At the door of the shack a man in civilian clothes--a red cowboy shirt and jeans (I remember that,
too)--held the screen door for us as we went in, and he said, "Good to see you, Captain. Good to see