Никанор Стариков – The Snipe’s Flight (страница 4)

– It did not happen, – I honestly admitted.

– Also it is not necessary. A picture is worth a thousand words, than hundred times … well, you have understood. The main thing is not to occur to it in the path. It is forgiving. It it is simple … will kill, will step through corpse and will go further.

I have nodded, digesting information. The picture cleared up. «Scythian» was not just truck. He was player on thin ice of corporate games. The ideal environment for the person with my experience.

– And sintetik? Ki? – I have asked, passing to the following object interesting me. – It always such … detached?

– Ki is Ki, – Alice has shrugged shoulders. – It follows logic and clauses. For it we, crew, – variables in the equation of successful delivery. But be not deceived. It for the ship. If it is necessary to choose between the order of the captain and rescue of «Scythian», he will choose the ship. It has the logic.

– It is clear, – I have murmured. The rational and incorruptible computer mind potentially dangerous in critical situation.

– Computer?! – she has attentively looked at me.

– I mean artificial intelligence, but the term «computer» it is pleasant to me more. It means cold and heartless. – I have tried to take away conversation aside and to cover the oversight.

– All right, there will be enough chatter, – Alice has become straight. – The head has cleared up?

– As though fog has dissipated, – I have smiled the new, charming smile. – Thanks to you, Alice. Has helped out me.

– There is nothing, – she has looked at me with interest again. – You as though have indeed changed. All right, – she has waved hand. – Just do not play the fool next time. And that Gena will set you straight not by voice, but wrench. We go, I will show how to clean sensors of external scanning. It is boring, but is vital if you do not want to fly in cloud of meteoric dust.

I have followed it, feeling as in the head my plan gradually is built, it was necessary to understand their technologies now. And for this purpose I had two and a half days. The following stop, I have solved, there will be galley in the evening. Place of informal communication. It is ideal to observe crew members in non-working situation. And after to try to start conversation with Ki. With sintetiky it is necessary to speak language of logic and the facts. What, with the facts was at me all right. I was the walking, breathing anomaly fact. «Keep, Vasily Ivanovich, – I have mentally told myself. – You in business. And it is similar, this business is worth it».

We cling to our memoirs as if they define us. We are defined what we do. My soul has survived to remind us that humanity – here our virtue. I know who I am such. And for what I have appeared in this world.

Chapter 2

Alice’s words about force majeure, about Kim, about cold the logician Ki. I absorbed everything as dry sponge, sorting information in memory compartments: operational data, psychological portraits, potential threats. Work saved me from metaphysical horror. While I acted, analyzed, built hypotheses, I had no time to go crazy from understanding of own jump through time. Postponement of my mind or soul for thousands of the years ahead. In five hours of the wearisome works which are carried out in labyrinth of cables and holograms, my legs hooted, and in eyes there were ripples from the blinking indicators. Sergey Mironov’s body was hardy, but not boundless. Alice, having noticed my pallor or what mute began to shake me, has sharply interrupted our excursion on shuttle life support systems.

– Everything, will be enough. Go to sleep, Mironov. You are more green, than cooling contour after jump. Now again you will fall and you will hit. And I do not want to explain you everything again. Tomorrow we will continue.

– Yes I as it should be, – I have tried to object on habit, but the voice gave my fatigue.

– It is the order, but not the sentence, – she parried without smile. – We have two more days of flight, and then landing and, perhaps, bustle. Forces will be necessary for you. Do not bring crew.

This last argument has worked on me as stimulator. «Not to bring team» – it there was language which I understood without translation. I have nodded and have gone to inhabited compartment.

The capsule has met me by the same ascetic twilight, silence and tranquility. I have thrown off overalls, having remained only in underwear from the same elastic material, and have flopped on narrow mattress. Muscles pleasantly ached – not from the exhausting cancer pain, and for healthy, healthy fatigue. I have closed eyes, trying to get rid of whirl of images: stars behind window, the tough person of Lavrov, smooth movements of Kim. I have failed in dream. I was woken by poorly vibrating bracelet on my wrist – the mute witness of my new existence.

I have opened eyes. On forearm inside where usually there would be my mechanical clock, the text rectangle shone. Message. Not ship, not from Alice or Gena. It has been encrypted to other, alien ship systems by the code. Also it was addressed not to Sergey Mironov. I have pressed icon and began to read.

«Snipe. You have missed another communication session. Urgently report the reason. Trianon. Code 7 alpha».

These words have burned my consciousness as electric shock. The safe which is deeply hided, sealed by layers of others memory suddenly has clicked and has opened, and its contents have rushed outside. I have screamed from sudden pain – not physical, but mental, shattering. Has squeezed the head hands, but it could not stop avalanche of memoirs and information. The snipe is my call sign. More true than Sergey Mironov, equipment navigator. Snipe, the agent of foreign intelligence of the Russian Empire working under cover. Pictures have started gleaming, accurate as newsreel shots: the cold hall with holographic maps of the galaxy. The man in strict, dark uniform with shoulder straps whose person I could not make out. «Remember the Snipe. Your legend, you Sergey Mironov. Guild of free dealers. Your purpose – Aurum-4». The training ground under the blue dome imitating the alien atmosphere. I in space suit, dexterously sort and I collect weapon unfamiliar to me, and is not present – it is blaster. The picture changes, I shoot from it at moving targets. The instructor gloomy nods like, acceptable. Then the starprobe vehicle simulator cabin shivering with vibration. I, all in sweat, maneuvre between asteroids. This is «Scythian»? No, some other ship, but same principle. Voice in earphones: «Piloting at the level above the average. For the technician – it is excellent. For the agent – minimum». And the main thing is my task. Accurate, clear: to establish the nature of the cargo transported by the Scythian ship under the contract with Herpix Industries corporation. To contact the agent «Smith» on Aurum-4. To find out true plans of corporation in system Helios-beta. Herpix is the instrument of influence of the Western European consortium. Their activity can threaten the interests of my empire in this system.

By three thousand hundred fifty eighth the global mankind was settled on galaxies and set of planets, having either terrestrial nationality of any given country or local «planetary». The countries which are on the earth owned or operated planets. Seldom planets were given in management to corporations as, for example, with Herpix Industries. Behind order in galactic systems the «Galactic inspection» created in two thousand nine-hundredth by the largest countries of the earth answered. On the earth there were four large countries. On the first place there was the Russian Empire, well here everything is clear, after it there was Asian People’s republic which has united in itself all continent and headed by China which structure, had included Pakistan and India a bit later. On the third place there was the Western European block (it still called the Western European consortium) as a part of which, there were all European countries, it bordered on the Russian Empire, and headed the block and Americans who, in turn, have taken control of all American continent operated the sovereigns. On the last place there was the Arab Empire the African continent was part it and the sheikh ruled the empire. There were still countries which so far any union have not joined or were not part, but them there were no more than ten.

Mankind, carrying out the expansion, for these years could not meet or find other reasonable beings. But what in general happened on the earth for me there was same old song familiar to me from my last life. Geopolitical games have developed into galactic, only now it was not Cold War, but the war transferred to space to stars and other planets with resources, important for each party. And I became her soldier again. Or rather, her spy. The stream of memoirs has subsided also suddenly, as well as has gushed, having left behind unpleasant feeling. I sat, having leaned back against cold wall of the capsule, and shivered small shiver. Not for fear. From the enormous pressure of two lives, two persons pressed in one body.