"John Varley - Millennium" - читать интересную книгу автора (Varley John)

Also, I do drink a bit.
You know how it is. First it's just at parties. Then it's a couple at the end of the day. After
the divorce I started drinking alone, because for the first time in my life I was having trouble
getting to sleep. And I know that's one of the signs, but it's miles short of alcoholism.
But a pattern had developed of arriving late at the office and I figured I'd better do
something about it before somebody higher up did. Tom Stanley recommended counseling,
but I think my alarm clock worked just as well. There's always a way to work out your
problems if you'll only take a look at them and then do what needs to be done.
For instance, when I found that three mornings in a row I had shut off my new alarm and
gone back to sleep, I put the switch in the kitchen and tied it in to the coffee-maker. When
you're up and have the coffee perking, it's too late to go back to sleep.
We all laughed about it at the office. Everybody thought it was cute. Okay, maybe rats
running through a maze are cute, too. And maybe you're perfectly well adjusted, without a
single gear that squeaks or spring that's wound too tight, and if so, I don't want to hear
about it. Tell it to your analyst.
So my phone rang.
So I sat up, looked around, realized it was still dark and knew this wasn't the beginning of
another routine day at the office. Then I grabbed the receiver before the phone could peel
the second layer of paint off the walls.
I guess I took a while getting it to my car. There had been a few drinks not too many
hours before, and I'm not at my best when I wake up, even on a go-team call. I heard a
hissing silence, then a hesitant voice.
"Mr. Smith?" It was the night-shift operator at the Board, a woman I'd never met.
"Yeah, you got him."
"Please hold for Mr. Petcher."
Then even the hiss was gone and l found myself in that twentieth-century version of
purgatory, 'on hold,' before I had a chance to protest.
Actually, I didn't mind. It gave me a chance to wake up. I yawned and scratched, put on
my glasses, and peered at the dart tacked to the wall above the nightstand. There he was,
C. Gordon Petcher, just below the chairman and the line that read "GO-TEAM MEMBERS --
Notify the following for all catastrophic accidents." The chart is changed every Thursday at
the end of the work day. The Chairman, Roger Ryan, is the only name that appears on every
one. No matter what happens, at any time of the day, Ryan is the first to hear about it.
My own name was a little further down the list in the space marked 'Aviation Duty
Officer/IIC,' followed by my beeper number and the number of my second home phone.
'IIC,' by the way, is not to be read as 'two-C,' but as 'Investigator In Charge.'
C. Gordon Petcher was the newest of the five members of the National Transportation
Safety Board. As such, he was naturally a little suspect. Those of us hired for our expertise
always wonder about new Board members, who are appointed for five-year terms. Each has
to go through a trial period during which we decide if this one is to be trusted or endured.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Bill."
"That's okay, Gordy." He wanted us to call him Gordy.
"I was just talking to Roger. We have a very bad one in California. Since it's so late and
the accident is so big, we've decided not to wait for available transport. The JetStar is
waiting for the go-team to assemble. I'm hoping it can take off within an hour. If you -- "
"How big, Gordy? Chicago? Everglades? San Diego?"
He sounded apologetic. That can happen. Breaking really bad news, you can feel that
somehow you're responsible for it.
"It could be bigger than Canary Islands," he said.
Part of me resented this new guy speaking to me in agency shorthand, while the rest of