Kee: переводы

→“Can I get you anything?”

→“Understood.”

→“How do you respond to Martin Karczek’s concerns about the transfer station?”

→“Couldn’t speak to that,” Vaughn said.

→“Seriously?” she said. “Did they think we wouldn’t notice it?”

→Drummer leaned forward, her hands flat against the cool of the desk. Shit. Shit shit shit. “Did we lose another one?”

→The bamboo broke again. “Ma’am?”

→Duarte’s eyes finally opened. “I don’t feel tired at all. Quite the opposite. Every day I feel more energetic and healthy than the last. A side effect of the treatment, I’m sure.”

→Paolo nearly dropped the IV line he was connecting to the port. “You haven’t slept in eleven days?”

→“Yes,” Duarte said with a smile and without opening his eyes, “I’m sure. Eleven days ago was the last time I slept.”

→Almost three decades had passed since Paolo Cortazár and the breakaway fleet had passed through Laconia gate. Time enough to build a little civilization, a city, a culture. Time enough for him to confirm that alien engineers had designed the protomolecule as a bridge builder. They had thrown it into the stars like seeds to hijack whatever organic life it encountered and create ring gates into a pocket universe, a nexus between worlds. Until they died out, the slow zone and its rings had been the hub of an empire that defied human comprehension. And now, it would be again. A little bridge-building mechanism that overcame locality changed everything for all humanity.

→Before Paolo could speak, the tech said, “The director asked me to remind you that you have an appointment. With”—the tech’s voice went low, almost to a whisper—“him. With Him.”

→Paolo pulled his gaze away from the screen and turned around. A pale-skinned person of indefinite gender stood in a lab coat, holding a large hand terminal. Paolo thought their name was Caton? Canton? Cantor? Something like that. One of the lab’s army of technicians. Competent, as far as Paolo could recall. But now interrupting him, so there would have to be consequences. The nervous look on Caton/Cantor/Canton’s face told him they were very aware of this fact.

→“Doctor Cortazár,” the voice repeated, insistent.

→“Doctor Cortazár,” a voice said.

→Not that Paolo cared about all humanity. For him, the fact of the protomolecule and the technologies it opened was all-encompassing. It not only changed the shape of the universe around him but also altered his personal and professional life. For decades, it had been his only obsession. In the fight that ended their relationship, his most recent boyfriend had accused him of actually loving the protomolecule.

→Paolo hadn’t been able to deny it. It had been so long since Paolo felt anything approaching love for another human that he’d lost the context for what did and didn’t qualify. Certainly, studying the protomolecule and all the myriad branches of scientific insight that came from it took most of his time and attention. Understanding the ways in which it interacted with the other alien artifacts and technologies would be the work of lifetimes. He made no apology for his devotion. The tiny, beautiful speck so rich with implicit information was like a rosebud that never stopped blooming. It was beautiful in a way that nothing else could ever be. His lover had been unable to accept this, and the end of their relationship felt inevitable in retrospect. Paolo did miss him, in an abstract sort of way. Like he might miss a lost pair of comfortable shoes.

→On the traffic-control channel, the captain of the Tori Byron was hailing the Laconian whatever it was, ordering it to come to a full stop. Bobbie nodded at the screen, willing Trejo to respond. To make this a more normal interaction. Instead the strange ship continued on its course, placid and implacable. Another drive plume still showed on the other side of the gate. Much smaller, but a second ship all the same. After a moment, the Tori Byron lit its main drive, moving itself in on an intercept. It was like watching a house cat preparing to face down a lion.

→It was the irony of making threats while having mass. The messages and voices, culture and conversation, could move so much more quickly than even the fastest ship. In the best case, it would have made persuasion and argument much more important. Moving ideas across the gap between planets was easy. Moving objects was hard. But it meant that whoever was on the other side had to be listening and willing to let their minds be changed. For all the other times, it was gunships and threats, same as ever.

→Twelve hours. A night and part of a day, for Freehold. And not quite enough time for a message to go from the Roci to Medina to the office of the president of the Transport Union and come back again. If Drummer threw a fit, they’d still be burning for Medina before her message came through. He’d have given the Freeholders more time to think things through if he could have. But lightspeed was lightspeed.