"Michael Swanwick - Stations of the Tide" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

The din of rain and straining engines made it difficult to talk. It felt like the end of the world. "You realize
that in a few months, all this will be under water? If we haven't settled Gregorian's case by then, it'll never
be done."
"You'll be done long before then. I'm sure you'll be back at the Puzzle Palace in plenty of time to keep
your sub from taking over your post." Korda's face smiled, to indicate that he was joking.
"You didn't tell me you'd given someone my duties. Just who do you have subbing for me anyway?"
"Philippe was gracious enough to agree to hold down the fort for the duration."
"Philippe!" There was a cold prickling at the back of his neck, as if sharks were circling overhead.
"You gave my post to Philippe?"
"I thought you liked Philippe."
"I like him fine," the bureaucrat said. "But is he right for the job?"
"Don't take it so personally. There's work to be done, and Philippe is very good at this sort of thing.
Should the Division grind to a halt just because you're away? Frankly that's not an attitude I want to
encourage." The surrogate reopened the writing desk, removed a television set, and switched it on. The
sound boomed, and he turned it down to the mumbling edge of inaudibility. He flipped through the
channels, piling image upon image, dissatisfied with them all.
The Leviathan broke free of the clouds. Sunlight flooded the lounge, and the bureaucrat blinked,
dazzled. The airship's shadow on the bright land below was wrapped in a diffuse rainbow. The ship lifted
joyously, searching for the top of the sky.
"Are you looking for something on that thing, or just fidgeting with it because you know it's annoying?"
Korda looked hurt. He straightened, turning his back on the set. "I thought I might find one of
Gregorian's commercials. It would give you some idea what you're up against. Never mind. I really do
have to be getting back to work. Be a good lad, and see if you can't handle this thing in an exemplary
fashion, hmm? I'm relying on you."
They shook hands, and Korda's face vanished from the surrogate. On automatic, the device returned
itself to storage.
"Philippe!" the bureaucrat said. "Those bastards!" He felt sickly aware that he was losing ground
rapidly. He had to wrap this thing up, and get back to the Puzzle Palace as quickly as possible. Philippe
was the acquisitive type. He leaned forward and snapped off the television.
When the screen went dead, everything was subtly changed, as if a cloud had passed from the sun, or
a window opened into a stuffy room.

He sat for a time, thinking. The lounge was all air and light, with sprays of orchids arranged in sconces
between the windows and rainbirds singing in the wicker cages hung between the pots of vines. It was
appointed for the tourist trade, but, ironically, planetary authority had closed down the resorts in the
Tidewater to discourage those selfsame tourists, experience having shown offworlders to be less
tractable to evacuation officers than were natives. Yet for all their obvious luxury, the fixtures had been
designed with economy of weight foremost and built of the lightest materials available, cost be damned.
They'd never recover the added expense with fuel savings; it had all been done to spite the offworld
battery manufacturers.
The bureaucrat was sensitive to this kind of friction. It arose wherever the moving edge of technology
control touched on local pride.
"Excuse me, sir." A young man entered, carrying a small table. He was wearing an extraordinary
gown, all shimmering moons and stars, ogres and ibises, woven into a cloth that dopplered from deepest
blue to profoundest red and back again as he moved. He set the table down, drew a cloth away from the
top to reveal a fishbowl without any fish, and extended a white-gloved hand. "I'm Lieutenant Chu, your
liaison officer."
They shook. "I thought I was to be assigned somebody from internal security," the bureaucrat said.
"We like to keep a low profile when we operate in the Tidewater, you understand." Chu opened the
robe. Underneath he was dressed in airship-corps blues. "Currently, I'm posing as an entertainment