"Allen, Roger MacBride - Chronicles of Solace 3 - Shores of Tomorrow" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allen Roger Macbride)

She picked up the datapad off her lap and handed it to him. УThis is,Ф she said. УItТs got my background reportЧbasically a summary of prior events. The things that weТve learned in bits and pieces here and there, put into some sort of rational order. Something everyone could read before the presentation and refer to later.Ф

Koffield took the datapad from her. УWhy is it so important that you sat up in my room until all hours of the night before your presentation?Ф

Wandella smiled wryly. УBecause it might get us all killed if DeSilvo doesnТt like it. And he wonТt.Ф She stretched and yawned. УI tried like hell to tell the truthЧbut the truth is pretty hellish. I started out just doing a basic summing-up. I read it over tonight, and realized that it was something more like the case for the prosecution. It might go too far.Ф

УAnd you want me to take a look at it before you give copies to everyone?Ф

УThatТs right. Tonight, if at all possible, so they can all have it in the morning.Ф

Koffield nodded reluctantly. So much for getting some rest himself. УIТd be happy to,Ф he said.

The two of them stood up, and Koffield saw her to the door.

Ashdin gestured at the datapad. УI suppose thatТs the first draft of the first history of all this,Ф she said. УVery strange.Ф

УWhat is?Ф

УTo be living a part of the history that I am writing.Ф She tapped her finger on the datapad Koffield held. УAnd something else that I find odd. I have to keep remembering that practically everything in there is a secret weТve uncovered. No one else knows all of what we know. History isnТt usually classified.Ф

УOr maybe it usually isЧbut we never know,Ф said Koffield with a smile.

УThatis a most disturbing idea,Ф said Ashdin. УGood night, Admiral. And thank you.Ф



Koffield closed the door behind his guest, then sat down in the chair she had just vacated. He began to read, not trying to take the whole thing in at once, but skimming over it, trying to get the feel, the flavor of the piece before studying it carefully.



Just over a thousand years ago, in the year 4306 of the Common Era, someone named Ulan Baskaw wrote the first of a series of books that were of great importance to the field of terraforming. We know virtually nothing about Baskaw . . .



Not even if Baskaw was male or female, though the convention was to assume Baskaw was a woman. Koffield skipped down the columns of text, reading a bit here and there.



. . . To oversimplify things almost to the point of absurdity, her work put forward the idea that, when terraforming a given planet, one could use a nearby world as a sort of nursery, a breeding ground for species one planned to introduce. . . . There was much more to her ideas that we will not explore here. Suffice it to say BaskawТs ideas were truly revolutionary.

. . . between the dates of BaskawТs second and third books, the attempt to terraform Mars experienced its final collapse. A careful examination of the third volume reveals subtle textual clues that suggest Baskaw did in fact visit Mars in the period just prior to the collapse. . . .

Her third book demonstrated not only that some terraformed worldscould fail, but thatall terraformed worlds would, inevitably, fail. Again, to oversimplify to an almost criminal degree, Baskaw found that the faster a world was terraformed, the sooner it would fail.

. . . Her fourth, and, so far as we know, final work is entitled, very simply,Contraction . It was discovered twice, once by Dr. DeSilvo, then by Admiral KoffieldЧin the Dark Museum of Suppressed Technology. It therefore represents the clearest possible evidence that BaskawТs work was, at least in part, deliberately suppressed.



And they did a good job of it,Koffield reflected. BaskawТs work did not seem to have been paid the slightest attention for centuries.