[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Page 52
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"We have only a flimsy grasp of the event, but if the Americans are
experimenting with this device, we will stand naked beneath it."
"We have assets in the Evil Empire?"
"Yes. Kinga the Bitch."
Rushenko shuddered. "A true nutcracker, that one."
"Let us send her into the field. Perhaps she will learn something useful."
"And if she is caught?"
"She has been hypnotized to give up under interrogation the name of an FSK
control she once dallied with and who left her. Let the FSK take the blame."
Colonel Rushenko nodded. "Then I will see that it's done."
With that, the meeting was adjourned, and Rushenko was left with a computer
linked to a Chinese-red telephone that, thanks to a friendly telephone
lineman, ran through the FSK switchboard and thus accessed the superior
government Vertushka phone system.
It took three hours to obtain a modem connection with the international
Internet. It was another embarrassing proof of how much Russian technology had
deteriorated since the old regime was overthrown.
In the glory days of the USSR, it would never have taken more than two.
Chapter 16
When Dr. Cosmo Pagan heard that the U.S. space shuttle had been melted down en
route to the launch pad, he was trying to find Mars through the
twenty-four-inch antique refractor at Lowell Observatory outside Flagstaff.
As observatories went, it wasn't much-a white, wood-frame Victorian structure
perched on a promontory. In the cloudless dry Arizona air, it was a perfect
spot to observe the Red Planet.
Here, Percival Lowell had mapped out the canals that later astronomers sought
in vain. But Lowell had seen them, and before he died, Cosmo Pagan wanted to
see them, too.
Mars wasn't being cooperative. Unable to sight it by fiddling with the right
ascension and declination, Pagan swung the blue telescope tube by hand and
peered through the brass-bound sighter.
Finally he got a fix.
There it was, the Red Planet, just as Lowell had described it in his notebooks
over a century ago. Lowell saw a dying planet kept alive by a planetwide
network of irrigation canals. His findings had fired the imaginations of H. G.
Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and other great chroniclers of the Mars that had
in turn ignited Pagan's youthful dreams.
Regrettably the Mars of canals and princesses and four-armed, green-skinned
giants had evaporated with the Viking and Mariner probes and subsequent
discoveries.
It was too bad. Even at his mature age, Dr. Pagan would rather green Martians
than red deserts. After all, there were red deserts on earth, too. Here in
Arizona. And in Mongolia, where the Red Gobi had an uncannily distinct Martian
feel to it-not that Dr. Pagan had ever been to the Red Gobi. There were no
news cameras in the Red Gobi. He never went anywhere where there wasn't the
possibility of face timeor at least good black ink.
Though discredited, Lowell hadn't toiled in vain, Cosmo thought. If not for
him, there would have been no "War of the Worlds" or Warlord of Mars to set
Cosmo Pagan on the road to his red destiny. By that reasoning, Percival Lowell
had not lived in vain.
And it was Cosmo Pagan's deepest wish to one night see the phenomenon that had
caused a great astronomer to believe he saw Martian canals.
His cellular phone shrilled as he was drinking in the sight of Mars, and
without taking his eyes from the eyepiece, he flipped it open and began
speaking.
"Dr. Cosmo Pagan, world-renowned authority on the universe and everything
under the heavens."
"Dr. Pagan, this is the Associated Press."
"Would you like a quote?"
"Exactly."
Page 53
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"The universe is transcendent in its awesome greatness. An ocean of stars in a
whirling cosmic whirlpool whirling about, oblivious to the paltry human
concerns of us mere molecular bio-machines."
"That's great, but I was looking for a specific quote."
"Right now I am looking at the Red Planet, Marsseat of war, according to the
ancient Romans. But to me it is a place of peace and scarlet tranquillity.
Some day man will set foot on Mars, but for all its grandeur it is but the
steppingstone to the greater, grander cosmos."
The AP man cleared his throat and tried again. "Dr. Pagan, do you think
Martians are behind the shuttle meltdown tonight?"
"I wish..." he breathed. Then, catching himself, he blurted, "Meltdown? What
shuttle?"
"The Reliant was turned to molten metal not twenty minutes ago."
"Wonderful," Pagan breathed.
"What?"
"Mars. It seems to be looking back at me. The north polar icecap looks like
the cool wink of a painted concubine. No canals, though. Lowell saw canals.
I'd love to see the canals he saw, even if that turned out to be just lichen
patterns."
"So you think the Martians theory has credence?"
"I think," said Dr. Cosmo Pagan, "the universe loves me."
"Say again?"
"Every time I have a lull in my lecture itinerary or I'm between specials, the
universe conjures up an event to perpetuate my name."
The AP man grew tense of voice. "Dr. Pagan, I'd like a comment on the shuttle
disaster."
"I regret the loss of our brave astronauts' lives."
"No astronauts died. It was a prelaunch accident."
"Then perhaps it was for the best."
"Sir?"
"Do you know how much vile carcinogens one of those thundering monsters puts
out? The noise pollution alone is enough to deafen the manatees in the Straits
of Florida. Migratory birds are driven away from their natural flight paths.
And that doesn't even take into account the damage to the ozone layer. Do you
know that at the rate we're depleting the biomass, our polar icecaps are going
to start melting, raising the ocean level everywhere? Spaceship Earth could go
the way of dead Mars. For all we know, we earthlings are repeating history.
Martian history."
"I thought you were pro-space flight, Dr. Pagan."
"I am pro-peaceful exploration of space. One missile. One probe. The shuttles
require a main external fuel tank and two boosters. That's three times the
noise, three times the pollution and for what? We're only filling the near
heavens with junk that falls to earth and might hit somebody. They go 125
miles up. Hell, Chris Columbus went farther than that in a wooden sailing
ship. The human tribe needs to look beyond our Earth-moon ghetto to Mars, then
the better neighborhood of the Jovian planets, and ultimately Alpha Centauri
and beyond. That's using space to our advantage."
"One last question."
"Go ahead."
"Do you think the shuttle was destroyed by the same power that melted the
BioBubble, and if so, why?"
"Perhaps," Dr. Pagan said thoughtfully, "it has something to do with our
thinning ozone layer. The way those shuttles tear through the ozone shield,
it's a miracle we all don't have basal-cell scalp sarcoma."
"Thanks, Dr. Pagan. That's just what I needed."
"I'll send you a bill," Dr. Cosmo Pagan said smoothly. Hanging up, he exulted,
"The universe loves me. It truly, truly does." Taking a last, wistful peek
into the eyepiece, he sighed. "But I have eyes for only you, my scarlet
hussy."
IN CELEBRATION, FLORIDA, an always-running Compaq computer beeped twice,
Page 54
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
signaling an incoming e-mail message.
Kinga Zongar heard it even in the early sleep of the sultry Florida night with
the cold moonlight coming through her bedroom screens like cool fingers of
silver and steel.
Throwing off a scarlet satin cover, she strode nude to the system, whose color
monitor splashed varicolored light against the sitting-room walls. Her long
russet hair, brushed back from her high brow, fell back in a ponytail that
swished with her every step.
Accessing her e-mail file, she read the message in the Cyrillic language:
To: AuntTamara@aol.com From: UncleVanya@shield.su.min Subject: Assignment
Greetings from the Motherland. Consider yourself activated this date. Go now
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]