"George Zebrowski - The Star Web" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zebrowski George)

"I'll take the responsibility, Dravic. Now move, or I'll go get some security police." He started to herd
them before him, preferring to bring up the rear with Dimitryk. "We'll all search better after we get some
sleep. Oh, leave your packs near the entrance. No sense carting them around."

"Shut up, Titus," Obrion said. "You can order us about, but we're still bright enough to think of little things
for ourselves."

In the quiet Juan remembered how Malachi had openly mocked the director, in cutting ways that would
always be superior to the angry kick in the pants Titus deserved.

As he lay in his bunk, Juan wondered about what they were getting into. Summet had become very
nervous by the time they had gotten back to quarters, as if he were afraid that some disaster would rob
him of his prize. Obrion's own work seemed a distant thought next to Malachi's absence and the thought
of exploring the buried structure. There would be years of work here…

He should have insisted that the search for Malachi go forward immediately, but they were all tired and
needed what sleep was left in the remaining night hours. He fell asleep dreaming of sea birds crying loudly
under a burning sun…

Behind the partition in her corner of the cabin, Lena was warm under the electric blanket. Malachi was
wheeling away from her into the bowels of a nameless construction and she remembered the feeling of
helplessness which was a cold whirlwind passing through all of them. Yet she felt reasonably sure that
Malachi had not fallen to his death. She could not imagine the strong African dead.

Summet was a meddler. Juan had told her of his troubles with the director. The man had to be
emotionally blackmailed to get things done. Facts counted only as convincers. Summet depended on
those around him for advice, and often got the best through a process of elimination and delay; but a thing
still had to look good politically to be implemented. The director was a device brought into being by
circumstances involving science and world affairs. Politicos trusted him and world science knew that he
could be convinced by their best spokesmen. She tried to imagine Titus Summet as the environmental
biologist he had been trained to be, and failed.

Summet depended on Juan's combination of skills. There were not many exobiologists who had his
organizational abilities and high standing in the scientific community. In Summet's position of power Juan
would have been envied. A tall, black-haired aristocrat from a Spanish-American California family, Juan
could easily charm a public gathering with his fluid bodily movements and noble posture. Summet was a
master at looking naturally uncomfortable and trustworthy at the same time, especially to people who
were planning to spend money. She could not remember him ever appearing with Juan in public.

She wondered why Ivan Dimitryk was here. There was something about his presence that suggested a
Soviet protest, or at least a move to steal some glory for Russian science. The official status of such
interlopers was "UN Observer." Summet had been obliged to bring one along, a sign of his servile
position to the world above his authority. It was obvious that Dimitryk was contemptuous of the director.
She smiled to herself at the Russian's ridiculous image, one which reminded her of Texans touring
Europe. She was beginning to feel some sympathy for Titus as she fell asleep.

Magnus Rassmussen knew enough about energy conversions to realize that the dissolving doorways
inside the structure involved a manipulation of power on a level of sophistication unknown in his
experience, or the experience of any engineer in recorded history, if the record of the past was to be
believed.