"Paul J. McAuley - Winning Peace" - читать интересную книгу автора (Mcauley Paul J)

orbiting each other at a mean distance of six billion kilometers, roughly equivalent to
the semimajor axis of Pluto’s orbit around the Sun. The K1 star, Ganesh Five A, had
a minor asteroid belt in its life zone, the largest rocks planoformed thousands of
years ago by Boxbuilders, and just one planet, a methane gas giant named Sheffield
by the Brit who’d first mapped the system, with glorious water-ice rings, the usual
assortment of small moons, and, this was why a forward facility had been
established there during the war between the Alliance and the Collective, no less than
four wormhole throats.

The system had been captured by the Collective early in the war, and be-cause
one of its wormholes was part of a chain that included the Collective’s New Babylon
system, and another exited deep in Alliance territory, it had become an important
staging and resupply area, with a big dock facility in orbit around Sheffield, and silos
and tunnel networks buried in several of the moons. Now, two years after the defeat
of the Alliance, the only people living there were employees of the salvage company
that was stripping the docks and silos, and a small Navy garrison.

Carver White and Mr. Kanza flew there on the company’s biggest scow,
hauling eight passengers, a small tug, and an assortment of cutting and de-molition
equipment. After they docked, Carver was left to kick his heels in the scow for six
hours, until at last Mr. Kanza buzzed him and told him to get his ass over to the
garrison. A marine escorted Carver to an office with a picture window overlooking
the spine of the docks, which stretched away in raw sunlight toward Sheffield’s
green crescent and the bright points of three moons strung in a line beyond the great
arch of its rings. This fabulous view was the first thing Carver saw when he swam
into the room; the second was Mr. Kanza and a Navy officer lounging in sling seats
next to it.

The officer was Lieutenant Rider Jackson, adjutant to the garrison
com-mander. In his mid-twenties, maybe a year older than Carver, he had a pale, thin
face, bright blue eyes, and a calm expression that didn’t give any-thing away. He
asked Carver about the ships he’d flown and the hours he’d logged serving in the
Alliance Navy, questioned him closely about what had happened after Collective
marines had boarded his crippled transport, the hand-to-hand fighting in the
corridors and holds, how Carver had passed out from loss of blood during a last
stand among the cold sleep coffins, how he’d woken up in a Collective hospital
ship, a prisoner of war. The Alliance had requested terms of surrender sixty-two
days later, having lost two battle fleets and more than fifty systems. By then, Carver
had been patched up and sold as indentured labor to the pharm factories on New
Babylon.
 Rider Jackson said, “You didn’t tell the prize officer you were a flight
engineer.”

“I gave him my name and rank and number. It was all he deserved to know.”

Carver was too proud to ask what this was all about, but he was pretty sure it
had something to do with Mr. Kanza’s financial difficulties. Every-one who worked
for Mr. Kanza knew he was in trouble. He’d borrowed to expand his little fleet, but
he hadn’t found enough new business to service the loan, and his creditors were
bearing down on him.