"Rob Swigart - AKA" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swigart Rob)

enterprises, will himself fly into the unimaginably vast emptiness of space beyond the stars.
"And what is the purpose of this trip, you may ask. Dick Peters asked one of Mr.
Augenblaue's aides that question - Why should a man of such wealth and power as Avery
Augenblaue want to take an unproved spacecraft with a revolutionary new drive that has never
even been tested before into the void between galaxies, a place where there are neither stars nor
planets nor air to breathe, nor anyone to talk to, a voyage that could take as long as ten years, as
we reckon time, without companion or repair station should anything go wrong?
"The aide replied, 'Because it's there.' We have heard those words before in answer to similar
questions. It seems, at times, the only answer; that Man's curiosity, his fervent seeking for an
answer to the great riddle of existence -"
"Excuse me, Walter, but the countdown is starting again. Our technical difficulties have
been resolved."
"Uh, right. Thank you, Dick."
The six-screen monitor in the VIP box displayed a tiny Walter looking serious, but no one
was watching. Dog-day August's feet whispered from guest to guest, dispensing violet frozen
daiquiris. The President, his formal profile bent to the mouth of his press secretary, glanced up,
saw the red light on the television camera aimed his way, and immediately turned his
outstanding left profile toward it so that his determined lantern jaw was outlined neatly against
the maroon fencing behind him for the world to admire.
The public address system announced one minute and counting, and an expectant hush
oozed slowly down the sides of the stands, smothering conversation in a sticky glue of sweaty
anticipation. Even Kay could feel the damp at her aggressively deodorized armpits. One
minute.
 As the seconds ticked away, the press corps in the stands, and the important visitors, and the
party in the VIP box, and the Secret Service agents scattered through the crowd, and three spies
for Soviet Russia, and three spies for Red China, and seven spies for Guatemala, and fourteen
Israeli agents - including one on loan to the Egyptians, who couldn't afford to send one of their
own - and assorted other special interests, including a well-dressed executive from an aircraft
firm with a wallet full of money who kept trying to buy information from an ABC technician,
all rose to their feet in an agony of silent waiting.
The crowd became one being, unified by a single purpose - well-dressed women and well-
groomed men, reporters of a hundred newspapers and syndicated services, Time, Newsweek,
U.S. News & World Report, Fortune, Gay Sunshine, Rolling Stone, Mother Earth News,
Reuters, Playboy, Viva, Hustler, Field and Stream, Good Housekeeping, The Watchtower,
Farm Quarterly, Pravda, Asahi, Screw. The silence deepened and intensified and began to
layer, deepest at the bottom of this small stadium around the ship, where the most important
people seemed to absorb into their silence even the stray sounds of the outside world, the rasp
of breeze, the chirp of a bird, the distant whine of engines; then another layer like shellac across
the middle of the stands; then at the top of the stands where the breeze did wisp unnoticed the
hair of those unfortunates who were unable to obtain seats closer to the launch.
Into the glutinous silence the terse numbers of the countdown fell like pebbles into tar,
vanishing one by one without a trace. At last the final five seconds arrived - four, three, two,
one, zero - and the crowded stands took one long collective breath, expecting a roar of sound or
a violent blast from the gold-painted bagel shape of the A.K.A. Monastic down below, but
instead, for several seconds, nothing whatsoever happened.
In the groin of the ship the countless free-zapping orgones were beginning to align
themselves at right angles to the base of the craft. As they danced into place, they were packed
tighter and tighter into the magnetic bottle of the engine. Then carefully controlled pressure
was leaked from the vents below. A watery blue light wavered between the legs of the
spaceship. Avery watched in delight as the faces of the crowd, and particularly on his number