"Iron Sunrise" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stross Charles)

IMPACT: T plus 1392 days, 13 hours, 02 minutes

The police drone was robotically curt. “We’ve found your daughter. Please come to deck G-red, zone two meeting point, and collect her.”

Morris Strowger stood up and glanced at his wife. He smiled. “I told you they’d find her.” The smile slowly faded.

His wife didn’t look up. With her bony fingers thrust together between her knees and her bowed head, Indica Strowger’s shoulders shook as if she’d grabbed hold of a live power supply. “Go away,” she said very quietly, her voice hard and controlled. “I’ll be all right.”

“If you’re sure—” Already the police drone was moving off. He glanced back uncertainly at her hunched form, then followed the insect away through crowded, human-smelling partition-runs, runs that were already deteriorating into a high-tech slum patrolled by bees with stun guns. Something about their departure, perhaps the final grim reality of dispossession, had snapped a band of tension that had held everyone together through the dark years just ended, and the solid ground of depression was giving way to a treacherous slurry of despair, hysteria, and uncertainty about the future. Dangerous times.

Wednesday was waiting at the meeting point just as the bee had said. She looked alone and afraid, and Morris, who had been thinking of harsh words, suddenly found himself unable to speak. “Vicki—”

“Dad!” She buried her chin in his shoulder, sharp-jawed like some young feral predator. She was shaking.

“Where’ve you been? Your mother’s been going crazy!” That wasn’t the half of it. He hugged her, firmly, feeling a terrible sense of hollow unease ebb away. His daughter was back, and he was angry as hell at her — and unspeakably relieved.

“I wanted to be alone,” she said very quietly, voice muffled. He tried to step back, but she refused to let go. A pang: she did that when she didn’t want to tell him something. She was no good at dissembling, but her sense of privacy was acute. An old woman behind him was raising a fuss at the harassed constable, something about a missing boy — no, her pet dog. Her son, her Sonny. Wednesday looked up at him. “I needed time to think.” The lie solidified in a crystal moment, and he didn’t have the heart to call her on it. There’d be time for that, and to tell her about the official reprimand later: trespassing off-limits on board a ship wasn’t the same as exploring the empty quadrants of a station. She didn’t know how lucky she was that the Captain was understanding — and that unusual allowances were being made for stressed-out adults, never mind kids leaving home for the first time they could remember.

“Come on.” He turned her away from the desk, rubbed her shoulder. “Come on. Back to our, uh, cabin. Ship’s undocking soon. They’ll be widecasting from the bridge. You don’t want to miss that?”

She looked up at him, an unreadable, serious expression on her face. “Oh, no.”