"Larry Niven and Steven Barnes - The Descent of Anansi v1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

A dull murmur wound its way through the audience, a murmur which could erupt into a roar at any moment. Thomas De Camp shifted uncomfortably and whispered, "1 don't like this." His small dark eyes flickered around the room. "I really don't need to be here. All they need from me is my vote."
Janet De Camp squeezed his hand, brought her lips close to his ear. "Look at these people. Most of them don't want to be here, either. They just want it to be over, one way or the other. We need you here, Tommy."
He looked down at their locked hands, her pale fingers forming a crisscross pattern against his dark brown skin, and sighed, knowing she was right. Someone had to be here, someone who cared. He just wished that it didn't have to be him. Janet pressed his hand again, then released it. Her ice-blue eyes were alive with eagerness, and the contrast to his own feelings was as marked as their physical contrast: her Nordic blood against his African and Oriental features, her five foot eight against his five and a half. The differences went deeper, deeper than he wanted to think about now.
A circular magnification screen glowed at one end of the Space Shuttle external tank that served as a meeting hail. Nobody had used chairs for free fall since Skylab. The hundred and fifty foot tank was a maze of netting. One hundred and eighty barefoot audience members clung to the lines by fingers and toes, like flies in a spiderweb, with this one difference: their feet all pointed in one direction, a tacitly agreed-upon "down."
The magnification screen was still blank: Fleming, the head of Falling Angel Enterprises, had yet to mount the podium.
There was a trickle of excitement from the back of the meeting hall, and De Camp turned his head in time to see Fleming and one of his aides gliding up the center safety line. He might have been going hand-over-hand up a rope, but no Marine fitness instructor ever floated "up" a line so effortlessly. Reaching the screen, Fleming unhooked his safety- and nudged himself into position, refastening himself to the podium. His aide fastened herself to a nearby strand and handed him his briefcase.
Fleming cleaned his glasses, his gently humorous face seeming too long until he slipped them on again. "Good afternoon. I know that seems a cruel joke to those of you on the 2200 shift, but bear with an old man, eh?"
A tension-easing chuckle warmed the room as Fleming inserted a cartridge into the podium and flashed through his notes. A brawny Solar Satellite tech in front of the De Camps unhooked his fingers from the web and stretched his arms. "This isn't going to be good," he said to no one in particular. "Fleming is smiling."
"Give him a chance," Thomas said, before he realized he was speaking aloud. The tech turned and looked at him with a bemused smile.
Fleming took his usual position at the mike, hands braced at the side of the podium, pulling down to make his own gravity. "Can all of you hear me? Good, good." He arched his back, and long muscles flexed. He spent more time in the centrifugal gravity of the administrative offices than anyone in Falling Angel. He looked every inch the patriarch, and the fatigue lines in his face only strengthened the image. "Well, I have just finished a short conversation with our friends in NASA." He let the ripple of laughter run its course. "Not totally to my surprise, they still refuse to deal with us. I believe that the most popular term being applied to us is 'lunatic pirates.'"
A thin woman-her name escaped Thomas, although he knew she worked in Air Quality- raised her hand. "And why shouldn't they call us pirates?" she asked testily. "Everything that we have up here was paid for by the taxpayers of the United States. As far as they're concerned, we're robbing them."
"Miss Ellinshaw," Fleming said, adjusting his glasses, "the last thing in this world I intend is to turn my back on the American people. You must understand that the incorporation of Falling Angel was a matter of much debate and controversy before any announcement was made."
"You're still stealing." Her words were set in concrete, beyond argument, and De Camp was suddenly glad he had never had to requisition a recycler filter from her.
Fleming's face reddened when she said that, and his teeth were set tightly, little muscles at the hinge of the jaw twitching. He had risked health and reputation to build Falling Angel from a single spacecraft in close orbit around the Moon, to a collection of clumped space junk, to one of the finest laboratory complexes in the world. He had supervised the expansion personally, scuffling and battling every inch of the way with the Earthlocked NASA honchos. Balding now, eyes weakened from long hours pouring over computer displays, Fleming had personally suited up and led rescue operations, supervised the construction of the big mass driver in Mare
Crisium, and for the past twelve years had poured his life and organizational genius into Falling Angel. At another time, this same roomful of people might have soberly discussed spacing Ellenshaw for those words.
Today, there was merely a whisper of assent.
"Stealing?" Fleming asked softly. "I think not. In the twelve years that Falling Angel has been in existence, we have repaid the original investment in our facility one and one half times. Adjusting for inflation and interest on the original 'loan,' it is arguable that we still owe the United States a few million dollars. Believe me-every effort will be made to set this right. The truth of the situation is that unless we are freed from the present crippling bureaucracy, we will soon be unable to operate at all.
"Friends, we are a quarter of a million miles from the folks who do most of the voting. To us-to each other, here-Falling Angel is our whole world. To America, we are a few hundred people engaged in an exotic operation which has taken twelve years to break even. When the next budget cutback comes down the pipe, most voters will vote for something they can see and touch and understand. And one day, without any noise, Falling Angel will die, like so much of our space program." He paused, and it was easy now to feel the weariness in him. Thomas chewed at the inside of his cheek, finding it difficult to watch. "And like so many other noble efforts, so many other dreams, one day we'll all pack up and go home."
Fleming gripped the side of the lecturn and leaned forward, auger-alive in his voice. "I'm an old man, and I've given my life to Falling Angel and the technology that build her. I'm too damned old to start over, and too damned mean to take this thing gracefully. We're going to show the American people that we can survive as a business, that we can make money-for them. If we can't appeal to their hearts, we'll try their wallets, but we're not going to lose. We need things that only Earth has, and Earth needs things that only we can make. We're Americans here, but we're something else, too. We're the future. If America doesn't believe in her future anymore, then maybe it's up to us to show her we're not dead yet."
At least half of the audience applauded loudly as Fleming pushed himself back from the podium and scanned them. Janet De Camp whispered to her husband: "Round one for the Good Guys."
The floor was opened for discussion, and controversy raged. Could Falling Angel truly survive as an independent? Could NASA or the American military retaliate?
The second question Fleming answered immediately. "If you ask that, you don't understand the situation. We aren't sitting on top of a diamond mine up here. At present we are considered a marginal enterprise. While we do have products we can sell, Congress will expect us to collapse without their support. When we don't, they may have some ideas about taking over, but remember: the real wealth of Falling Angel is its experienced personnel. At worst they might make an example of me and a few of my most conspicuous officers. The rest of you will be even more valuable to them than you are now.
"The American voter can see Falling Angel if he owns a telescope and knows enough to aim it right when we're rounding the edge of the Moon. That voter is fairly rare, and he's on our side anyway, and what does he see? A junkyard of expended Shuttle main tanks. Hardly something worth fighting over. What else? A fleet of six antiquated Space Shuttles, two of which NASA has already confiscated because they were on the ground, and three cesium-fueled ion drive tugs capable of moving them between Earth and Lunar orbit."
There were a few more minutes of talk, then Ellinshaw raised her hand and stood again. "Mr. Fleming," she said, "I move that we put this to a vote now."
He nodded. "All right. Seconded?"
The silence lasted too long for Thomas' comfort, and he raised a stocky arm. "Seconded."
"Then a vote it is. All in favor of independence for Falling Angel?"
For an instant there was no movement in the room, then hands began to rise like sprouted seedlings, until just under half of the personnel had raised their arms. There was a quick count.
"Opposed?"
Fleming's assistant counted again, and handed her tally up to the administrator. He looked it over with a neutral expression. Janet's face flattened with dismay. "We lost." She sounded numb.
"Wait. It's not over yet."
Fleming handed the tally back, then addressed them. "All post-essential personnel and lunar personnel have submitted proxies. The initialed-vote sheets have been tabulated, and are available for inspection in my office. The official tally is: Independence, 147, Opposed, 142. The motion passes."
There were a few cheers, but also a rumbling undercurrent of discontent Fleming raised his hand for attention. "Those of you who voted to remain under control of NASA may leave Falling Angel if you wish. We have made arrangements to ferry you back. This will relieve you of any fear of prosecution. Those of you who stay, well, I hope you know how badly we need each and every one of you, now more than ever. Let it be a matter between you and your conscience. Just remember-it's your future we're fighting for."
Fleming left the lecturn to scattered applause, much of the audience already divided into percolating knots of controversy.
Thomas turned to his wife, unhooking fingers and toes from the net. "Well, that's that."
"We did it, Tommy." She grinned broadly. "Look at this. Are you sure you don't want to stick around? You won't find action like this out in the Belt." Her smile was a mask, her voice part wheedle and part sorrowful acceptance.
"I need quiet. Makes it easier to do the job. Anyway, I'll be wherever the ion drives are. I've done my part here."
Their eyes met and locked, and Janet tore hers away first. She tugged at him as he launched himself towards the safety line. "See you for dinner?"
There was quiet humor in the dark mongol face, humor that rose to a smile. "Sure. I'll be in the shop if you need me."
She nodded, watched him swim up the line with the smile fading from her lips. For a moment her vision misted, then she shook her head clear. "No time for that," she said fiercely, quietly. Then: "Damn it, there's no time for anything, anymore." Janet flexed the cramp from her fingers and joined the exodus, dozens of barefooted figures waiting for a place in line, heading for the locks.

Three


THE AUCTION


Most of those leaving the meeting hall donned pressure suits or took one of the connection tubes, but the administrator of Falling Angel had a scooter waiting. The pressurized three-man vehicles were in short supply, and generally reserved for the repair crews.