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

УMaТam?Ф

УWeТre running out of time, and weТre not going to reach 100 percent. Will we get closer with manual or automatic?Ф There was silence on the line. УWell? Which is it?Ф

УPlease, maТam. JustЧplease. Let me think for a moment.Ф

Silence again, and then the young manТs voice again, subdued and hesitant. УItТsЧitТs nothing anyone can answer absolutely,Ф he said. УItТs guesses, probabilities, how much power input we could lose in the changeover, how long the changeover would take, what might work, what might break . . .Ф

His voice drifted off. Drayax spoke again. УI need an answer,Ф she said, her voice as flat and hard as she could make it. УI need it now.Ф

The briefest of pauses, thenЧ

УManual,Ф he said. УIf I were a betting man, IТd put my money down on manual.Ф

УWell if you werenТt a betting man before, you are one now. Do it. Get me the power I need. And tell me theinstant we start losing instead of gaining. Now go do it.Ф

УUnderstood, Program Director.Ф The voice was scared, no doubtЧbut also resolute. УGoing off comm now to carry out your instructions. Groundside Power out.Ф

The line went dead. Drayax felt her heart pounding and wished she had not felt that the leader needed to be seen always standing, directing, upright, and alertЧin other words, that she had instead designed her own console with a place to sit down. She desperately needed to rest, to shut her eyes, to make it all go away. No, that wasnТt it. She needed it all to stay with her, to stay together. That was what this was all aboutЧholding it together, as long as they could, buying time for Solace, as much time as they could, buying decades, years, months, even weeks or days, at any cost, in the slender hope that it would be enough time for miracles to happen.



Villjae Benzen was halfway across Groundside Power ReceptionТs control room almost before he finished signing off. HeТd been worried about the autoalign system for months, and had spent many a sleepless night fretting over how to configure for manual control in a hurry.

But Villjae hadnТt considered the possibility of auto-align packing it in this late in the game. His extremely sketchy contingency plans had all assumed they would discover a major autoalign failure two days before Ignition, or at the very worst, just after the SunSpot had begun beaming down power. The one saving grace was that theyТd all been watching the autocontrol system flaking out all day long, and therefore knew there was a good chance theyТd have to override. Villjae had had time to think it through, work out some sort of hashed-together procedure.

УAll right,Ф he called out to the controllers at their stations. УYou heard the director. WeТve got to pull this one out, people!Ф

УI wish I could get my hands on the genius who designed this system,Ф Ballsto Vaihop growled. УBuran Rufdrop got all the medals for design. I wish to hell he could see how nice all his pretty systems are working now.Ф

УMe too, but heТs too busy being dead,Ф Villjae replied.

Villjae could not help but think that, if an exhausted pilot hadnТt killed himself and Designer Rufdrop and half the rest of the trained staff in a lander crash three months before, then perhaps they wouldnТt have been in this mess. Or perhaps they would be anyway. Villjae had started to have doubts about Rufdrop, and RufdropТs design, since the day he had been tapped to take over the section.

УBallsto, get on panel three and bring up Subroutine Gamma-Two. Curthaus, I need you to get down to the power distribution panel on Downlevel Baker. Panel 343. Get the safety cover off, stay on comm, and stand by. Beseda, you cut panel oneТs power off, then breathe down my neck. IТm going to need more hands than I have hooking up the test-stand controller. Ballsto, got that subroutine up?Ф

УYah,Ф Ballsto Vaihop answered. УShould I run it now?Ф

УNo!No! That might scramble the whole system. We donТt run it untilafter weТve got the manual control plugged in. Wait for my say-so. Somebody, get the hand-controller module and roll it in here. Fast!Ф

Beseda Mahrlin cut out panel one using the command console at her station and hurried after him. The two of them shoved chairs out of the way and knelt in front of the main control console. Villjae popped the cover off and peered into the gloomy interior.

УHandlight!Ф he called out, and one appeared at once, offered from behind him. УHold it for us,Ф he said to whoever it was who had produced the light. He didnТt have time to look behind and see who it was. He heard a rattling rumble off to one side and saw the battered old wheeled utility table that held the hand-controller lash-up being rolled into place.

УOkay, point the light over toward that corner a bit. Okay. Good. Beseda, start handing me hookups from the test-stand controller.Ф

The test-stand controller, a three-way hand-controller scavenged off an old remote operator system, was the one piece of hardware in the control center that could be used to control the pointing of the Receptor Array directly, without any computer input. TheyТd used it during the final phases of construction and during the few dress rehearsals theyТd managed before today. Mainly it had been used to simulate a deflection or impose a misalignment to see how the system would respond. Now the very shabby-looking old industrial joystick bolted to a rollaway table was the one thing left that might get them out of this.

УWe should have flipped to manual two hours ago,Ф Villjae muttered as he started hooking the leads up to the panelТs innards.