Echo (Jack Mcdevitt) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

FORTY-ONE

When people say how fortunate they are to have been born during the present age, they tend to be thinking of the fact that the supply of food is assured, we all have roofs over our heads, and we need not worry about invading armies showing up at the city gates. But there’s more to it than simply the tools of survival. Had we slipped from the womb in, say, the twelfth century, we would not only have faced a short life span, but we’d have had no method of communication more competent than a horse. What was going on in the greater world, if indeed anything was, would remain a mystery unless the barbarians attacked. Or the Nile went into flood stage. We would have no books. No easy way to wash clothes. No pictures of the kids. No understanding of how the sun rose and set. It was a world full of gods, demons, and miracles. It is no wonder sanity in that era was so rare.

—Blackwood Conn, Life at the Edge

I passed the news to Alex. He was making notes, prepping for his presentation. “Well, that’s good,” he said. “I’ll be glad to get back to a normal life. And a normal weight.”

“How’s your leg?”

He smiled. “I’d have a little trouble down at the dance. Otherwise, it’s okay.”

“You know what you’re going to say tonight?”

“More or less.” He rearranged himself in the chair. The leg was propped up on a footstool. “We can provide all kinds of help. Supplies. Medical assistance—Did you hear? They have another case of the Sickness to contend with—”

“I heard.”

“I keep thinking how different it might have been here had someone back home, twenty-eight years ago, spoken up.”

Alex was an accomplished speaker. He had a sense of humor, was good at winning an audience over, got to the point quickly, and kept it short. He was exceptional that night. The dining hall was filled when Viscenda introduced him. “We all know him,” she said, “as one of our two friendly aliens. Let’s welcome Alex Benedict.”

The crowd stood and applauded. I was struck by the similarity of social customs, retained even after thousands of years of separation. Or developed separately, whichever it was.

Alex walked to the lectern and thanked Viscenda. Then he turned to the audience. “Chase and I owe all of you a debt of gratitude. You provided a home for us when we were in trouble. And I should also say thanks especially to Turam—Where are you, Turam?” He knew perfectly well where Turam was because I knew he’d pinpointed him before going up there. “Ah, there you are. Turam, stand up, please. He’s the man who pulled us out of the fire. Don’t know where we’d have been without you, partner. Well, in fact, I guess I do know.”

The audience applauded, and from that moment, they belonged to him.

He described his reaction to Akaiyo, how fortunate we’d been to come down near the facility. “There are places,” he said, “that don’t like strangers very much. This is not one of them.

“To the degree that we can, we’d like to reciprocate. We can never do for you what you have done for us. But we can help. We received information a short while ago that a rescue vehicle has arrived and will be taking us off, probably sometime tomorrow morning.” They sat quietly. “We’ll be leaving for a short time. But we’ll be back.” Fist-pumping and cheers. “With supplies. With help. I can promise you that you will never again have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.”

That blew the roof off.

He waited until they quieted. Then he continued: “Something else. I’m sure the word has gotten around that we’ve been saying your ancestors developed a method to travel to other worlds. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but it’s true. You, your forebears, visited Zhedar. It happened a long time ago. So long ago that you’ve forgotten it. But we’ve seen the evidence. We’ve been there.

“I’ve heard some of you wonder whether your lives are worth living. Whether it isn’t time to give up. But we would not wish to lose you. And I suspect that you would not allow it to happen even if we were not here to help.

“But we are. When you get up tomorrow, it’s possible Chase and I will be gone. But we’ll be back.”

We hadn’t heard from Belle during her last few passes. It might have been because she knew Alex would be speaking, and we hadn’t given her the precise schedule, so she wouldn’t have wanted to interrupt. We spent an hour after the address talking with our hosts. They were ecstatic about what we were saying, and I think we shook hands with everybody in the place. Including the kids.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that, since the nights were several hours longer than the nights on Rimway, we ran on a different cycle from the general population. We were often exhausted in the daytime and awake half the night. It was the middle of the afternoon, but our bodies were at about their 3:00 A.M. point in the sequence. I’d lost count, but it felt like it. When the event was finally over, and we were back in our quarters, Alex carefully lowered himself into a chair, and I said something about how glad I’d be to get off Echo III. StarCorps couldn’t arrive too soon.

I glanced at Belle’s schedule and thought I’d say hello. So I called.

But got no answer.

I took another look at the schedule and tried again. “Belle, you there?”

Alex glanced up at me.

“Belle, respond please.”

We listened to the yells of some kids playing ball just outside the window. Then Alex shook his head and held both hands up, palms out, while he mouthed one word: Stop.

He signaled me to pass him the link. But keep quiet while I was doing it.

I removed the bracelet and held it out for him. He took it and studied it for a moment. Then he spoke into it: “My God, Chase. Get down! They’re here!”

My reflexes took over, and I hit the deck.