Archiwum
- Index
- James Fenimore Cooper Oak Openings (PG) (v1.0) [txt]
- James Alan Gardner [League Of Peoples 02] Commitment Hour
- James Alan Gardner [League Of Peoples 07] Radiant
- 052. Darcy Emma James Family 01 Rozbitkowie
- James Axler Deathlands 051 Rat King
- James Fenimore Cooper Jack Tier, Volume 2
- James Axler Earthblood 02 Deep Trek
- James Axler Deathlands 065 Hellbenders
- 063. James Julia Prywatna wyspa
- flower of the morning Celine Conway
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- lafemka.pev.pl
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away and walked across the floor of the dome to call an elevator at the rear
wall. A minute or two later she stepped out into a brightly lit, white-walled
corridor three levels below the surface and began walking in the direction of
the central hub of Bruno's underground labyrinth.
Mikolai Sobroskin, the Soviet representative on Farside, came out of one of
the doors as she passed and turned to walk with her in the same direction. He
was short but broad, completely bald, and pink-skinned, and he walked with a
hurried, jerking gait, even in lunar gravity, that made her feel for a moment
like Snow White. From a dossier that Norman Pacey had procured, however, she
knew that the Russian had been a lieutenant-general in the Red Army, where he
had specialized in electronic warfare and countermeasures, and a
counterintelligence expert for many years after that. He came from a world
about as far removed from Walt Disney's as it was possible to get.
"I spent three months in the Pacific conducting equipment trials aboard a
nuclear carrier many years ago," Sobroskin remarked. "It seemed that it was
impossible to get from anywhere to anywhere without interminable corridors. I
never did find out what lay in between half those places. This base reminds me
of it."
"I'd say the New York subway," Heller replied.
"Ah, but the difference is that these walls get washed more regularly. One of
the problems with capitalism is that only the things that pay get done. So it
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wears a clean suit which conceals dirty undershorts."
Heller smiled faintly. At least it was good that the differences that erupted
across the table in the conference room could be left there. Anything else
would have made life intolerable in the cramped, communal atmosphere of the
base. "The shuttle from Tycho has just landed," she said. "I wonder what's
new."
"Yes, I know. No doubt some mail from Moscow and Washington for us to argue
about tomorrow." The original UN charter had ruled against representatives
receiving instructions from their national governments, but nobody at Farside
kept up any pretenses about that.
"I hope not too much," she sighed. "We should be thinking of the future of the
whole planet. National politics shouldn't come into this." She glanced
sideways as she spoke, searching his face for a hint of a reaction. Nobody at
Washington had yet been able to decide for sure if the UN stance was being
dictated from the Kremlin, or if the Soviets were simply playing along with
something they found expedient to their own ends. But the Russian remained
inscrutable.
They came out of the corridor and entered the "common room"
-- normally the UNSA Officers' Mess, but assigned temporarily for off-duty use
by the visiting UN delegation. The air was warm and stuffy. A mixed group of
about a dozen UN delegates and permanent residents of the base was present,
some reading, two engrossed in a chess game, and the others talking in small
groups around the room or at the small bar at the far end. Sobroskin continued
walking and disappeared through the far door, which led to the rooms allocated
for office space for the delegation. Heller had intended going the same way,
but she was intercepted by Niels Sverenssen, the delegation's
Swedish chairman, who detached himself from a small group standing near where
they had entered.
"Oh, Karen," he said, catching her elbow lightly and steering her to one side.
"I've been looking for you. There are a few points from today's meeting that
we ought to resolve before finalizing tomorrow's agenda. I was hoping to
discuss them before it's typed up." He was very tall and lean, and he carried
his elegant crown of silver hair with a haughty uprightness that always made
Heller think of him as the last of the true blue-blooded European aristocrats.
His dress was always impeccable and formal, even at Bruno where practically
everyone else had soon taken to more casual wear, and he gave the impression
somehow of looking on the rest of the human race with something approaching
disdain, as if condescending to mix with them only as an imposition of duty.
Heller was never able to feel quite at ease in his presence, and she had spent
too much time in
Paris and on other European assignments to attribute it simply to cultural
differences.
"Well, I was on my way to check the mall," she said. "If the discussion can
wait for an hour or so, I could see you back here. We'll go through it over a
drink maybe, or use one of the offices. Was it anything important?"
"A few questions of procedure and some definitions that need clarifying under
one or two
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headings." Sverenssen's voice had fallen from its public-address mode of a
moment earlier, and as he spoke he moved around as if to shield their
conversation from the rest of the room. He was looking at her with a curious
expression
-- an intrigued detachment that was strangely intimate and distant at the same
time. It made her feel like a kitchen wench being looked over by a medieval
lord-of-the-manor. "I was thinking of something perhaps a little more
comfortable later," he said, his tone now ominously confidential. "Possibly
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over dinner, if I might have the honor."
"I'm not sure when I'll be having dinner tonight," she replied, telling
herself that she was getting it all wrong. "It might be late."
"A more companionable hour, wouldn't you agree," Sverenssen murmured
pointedly.
It was getting to her again. His words implied that the honor would be his,
but his manner left no doubt that she should consider it hers. "I thought you
said that you needed to talk before the agenda gets typed," she said.
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