martin319: переводы

→“If we had more personnel—”

→“I don’t want to be president of thirteen hundred worlds,” Drummer said. “I want to run a transport union that regulates trade through the gates. And then I want all those planets and moons and satellites to work out their own issues without it gumming up our works. We’re already stretched too thin.”

→“Or,” Santos-Baca said, “we admit what we’ve been playing footsie with since we crawled up out of the starving years. We start treating the union like the government of the thirteen hundred worlds.”

→“I understand that,” Drummer said. “I don’t like it either. But it gives us a level of deniability for things like James Holden’s new policing schemes. What I don’t want is thirteen hundred planets deciding that the union is the problem. If the UN is behind a crackdown—even just nominally—it spreads out the responsibility. This Houston and his band of merry men can rot in a UN jail, and then we’re still just the ships that take things from one place to another. Prisoners, among other things.”

→Drummer nodded. The enmity between the inners and the Belt was still the biggest obstacle Drummer faced. And even she didn’t have much use for the Earth-Mars Coalition.

→“So,” Santos-Baca said. “Well, I have had some informal conversations about it. The idea of asking the UN for a charter is … it’s a hard sell. We didn’t come all this way to go back down dirtside to ask permission for things, now did we?”

→Drummer’s heart sank a little. She’d managed to forget about that nascent issue, and being reminded felt oppressive. “No, I mean the Rocinante problem. And how it relates to—” She jerked a thumb toward the empty monitor where the seedpod video had been. “We’ve just taken control of the governor of a colony planet. The Association of Worlds hasn’t formally asked about his status with us yet, but it’s just a matter of time. I can feel Carrie Fisk rubbing her stubby little fingers together. It would make me very happy to get out in front of this.”

→“You’re talking about the tariff structure Earth and Mars are proposing for Ganymede?”

→“One of the things I learned working for Fred Johnson back in the day?” Drummer said. “Don’t let things sit for too long. It’s always tempting to just ignore the things that aren’t actually on fire just at the moment, but then you’re also committing to spend your time putting out fires.”

→“I get it,” Drummer said and shifted to look at Santos-Baca. “Isn’t this kind of decision pretty much within your wheelhouse?”

→“Millions of them?” she asked.

→“No,” Bobbie said. “You don’t need to make light of it.”

→“Yeah,” Clarissa said. “And … I don’t know. Something about it seems less dignified when it’s Holden. You know what I mean? Of all the people to get choked up over.”

→Clarissa was in the medical bay, strapped into one of the autodocs. Tubes ran from the gently purring machinery into the port on the woman’s side, blood flowing out of the thin body and then being pumped back in. Her skin was the color of a wax candle and stretched tight against her cheekbones. She still smiled and raised a hand in greeting when Bobbie floated in. As a technician, Clarissa Mao had always been one of the best Bobbie had worked with. She had the sense that the thin woman’s drive came out of a kind of anger and desperation. Working to keep some greater darkness at bay. It was an impulse Bobbie understood.

→“Well, yes,” Holden said, “but I mean—”

→“Yes, sir,” Clarissa said with a sharp if ironic salute. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

→“Everyone gets to mourn how they need to,” Bobbie said. “And then everyone needs to get their asses back to work.”

→“I’ve been a little self-pitying about Naomi and Holden,” Clarissa said. “I didn’t mean to make it anyone else’s problem. I’ll get back to duty.”

→“About what?”

→“I am too,” Bobbie said as she pulled herself to the door. And I’m amazed that Holden never did. For the first time, Bobbie had the sense that there were some ways—not all, but some—in which she was going to be a much better captain than he’d been.