"Charles Stross - Love me" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

He didn't say anything more until Oshi prompted: "yes?"

Suddenly his eyes were burning, burning through her like drills. "I assumed that ignorance
was a sufficient defense. We knew what was going on in the Kuiper belt, battles between
Ultrabright factions, Superbright complexes going NP-slow, big energy-intensive
restructuring in the Oort halo around the outer system. But it didn't seem to effect us: it
had been going on for decades, after all. We humans, huddling close to the sun, we
weren't going to be effected, were we?"

Oshi shook her head, dumbly. A horrible sense of déja vu overtook her as he continued.

"I was young at the time, part of a conservative faction. We advocated neutrality, as if it
was some kind of defense. We wanted to stay clear of the warfare raging above our heads,

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out in the dark spaces on the edge of the system. We managed to get the military budget
reduced to a sensible level, of course -- not that our missiles and attack warships would
have done any good, not against the kind of tactics the 'brights were using. We were mice,
I'll freely admit. But when the ultimatum came -- well. I was young at the time. I thought
there was room for negotiation. I didn't think it was possible, or necessary, to try to
understand the enemy. I thought they'd keep their distance."

"Didn't they?"

"They used some kind of insurgency strike. Belweathers, I think the term is -- trained
goats, used to lead their peers to the slaughterhouse door -- only these ones were human
beings carrying death lists and intelligent weapons." He stopped again, then continued as
if nothing had happened, voice a measured monotone that concealed unmeasured depths
of anger and pity: "I was lucky. Listed as a useful idiot, I suppose, and in the opposition
groupings -- I thought the ancient paranoids running the government were out of touch
with reality, ossified. Learned better, after they were all dead. By that time things were
going to hell in a zeppelin, it was all we could do to set up an emergency team to handle
the exodus -- and even then, some of us couldn't adapt. I lost a lover, two children, that
way. Because they wouldn't face up to ..." He looked at her mutely.

Oshi said nothing. She didn't trust herself to speak.

"Never again," said Boris: " never again. Half-measures are no solution; we can't share a
solar system, a galaxy even, with these aliens. They are aliens, as unlike us as any
organism we've ever met or created. Whatever we may think is reasonable, it's fair to
assume they don't think the same way. And I owe it to their memory not to make the same
mistake again. Not to underestimate what needs doing. Nor to underestimate their
malevolence." At which point he looked right at Oshi, giving her a chilly feeling that he
could see right through her. "They are our enemies, the way a dirtworld farmer is the
enemy of his sheep. If we give them a chance they'll kill us. I'm not going to give them
any more chances."